PRIVATE BUSINESS

Liverpool City Council (Prohibition of Smoking in Places of Work) Bill [Lords]

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [24 May],
	That so much of the Lords Message [19th May] as relates to the Liverpool City Council (Prohibition of Smoking in Places of Work) Bill [Lords] be now considered.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House concurs with the Lords in their Resolution.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
	Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

London Local Authorities (Prohibition of Smoking in Places of Work) Bill [Lords]

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [24 May],
	That so much of the Lords Message [19th May] as relates to the London Local Authorities (Prohibition of Smoking in Places of Work) Bill [Lords] be now considered.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House concurs with the Lords in their Resolution.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
	Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

Oral Answers to Questions

WALES OFFICE

The Secretary of State was asked—

Electoral System

Wayne David: What steps the Government plan to take to reform the electoral system for the National Assembly for Wales.

Jessica Morden: What steps the Government plan to take to reform the electoral system for the National Assembly for Wales.

Peter Hain: Last week, I published the White Paper "Better Governance for Wales", which sets out the changes the Government propose to the electoral system for the National Assembly for Wales in chapter 4.

Wayne David: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. Does he agree that in elections to the Welsh Assembly there is a democratic deficit? That is because individuals who stand in the constituency list and lose can nevertheless get elected on the regional list.

Peter Hain: I very much agree with my hon. Friend, as Conservative Members would be astonished to know. I have been looking at some of the figures and at what has happened: Eleanor Burnham, 7.9 per cent. in Clwyd, West, elected as a regional Member; Owen John Thomas, 8.7 per cent. in Cardiff, Central, elected as a regional Member; Laura Jones, 10 per cent. in Caerphilly, elected as a regional Member; Mike German, 14 per cent. in Torfaen, elected; and Lisa Francis, 16 per cent. in Meirionnydd Nant Conwy elected. In all of those cases losers became winners. The system is abusing the electoral process.

Jessica Morden: Will my right hon. Friend consider using a single vote rather than two to elect additional Members, as is being considered by the Arbuthnot commission in Scotland?

Peter Hain: My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. Like her, I have noticed that that is being argued for in respect of Scotland in some of the evidence put to the independent commission. I know from my own constituency experience that voters find it confusing having two ballot papers. It may be that it is something that we need to consider. I would be interested in further representations on the matter from her or other colleagues, or from Opposition Members.

Elfyn Llwyd: Does this not sum it all up—no discussion about the Richard commission about legislative proposals? Instead, there is a planted question from the Whips to do with a spiteful, narrow little party point. That shows new Labour as exactly what it is—itself first, the people of Wales last.

Peter Hain: Actually, it is Plaid Cymru's policy to put itself first and the people of Wales last, which is what would happen if it got its way and Wales was dragged into independence against its will.
	I remind the hon. Gentleman of a quote from the Electoral Reform Society, an independent non-party body. It says:
	"A system in which candidates can lose elections but nevertheless win seats undermines respect for the electoral process. There is also a concern that list Members can cherry-pick issues, deciding to focus their activities on those issues most likely to raise their profile or create problems for their constituency opponents".
	I am astonished that of all the issues the hon. Gentleman could have chosen to raise with me this afternoon, he chose to defend the indefensible.

Roger Williams: I am pleased that the Secretary of State is answering this question because he is on record, when he was a member of another party, as supporting the single transferable vote for proportional representation. As that was the recommendation of the Richard commission, will he put on the record why he is now against STV and the reasons for that?

Peter Hain: Actually, the hon. Gentleman is plain wrong. More than 30 years ago, when I was in the Young Liberals, I argued against Liberal policy on the single transferable vote. I have always advocated the alternative vote system, which retains the single Member constituency, in which electors can get rid of people who they do not want and elect people who they do want, which cannot be done under the Liberal Democrat proposals.

Bill Wiggin: Will the Secretary of State explain why he did not see the anomalies of that system when all Labour Assembly Members stood on both the regional and the constituency lists?

Peter Hain: For the simple reason that I did not have any idea then—and neither did the then Secretary of State—that there would be widespread abuse of the system, which was designed to achieve greater proportionality and, for example, allow Conservatives to be elected to the Assembly. They could not possibly be elected otherwise, given the number of votes for them across Wales. The system was designed to be fairer, and it demonstrated generosity. We did not realise, however, that there would be flagrant abuse of the system whereby losing candidates, including a whole string of Conservatives, set themselves up in the very constituencies where they were defeated as rival Assembly representatives to the elected Members. The Electoral Reform Society is therefore concerned, as is the former Conservative Secretary of State, Lord Crickhowell, who said that the arrangements are "pretty indefensible".

Bill Wiggin: As the Secretary of State is so anxious to be fair to the Welsh electorate, will he look at the size of Welsh constituencies and the number of Welsh MPs?

Peter Hain: No, I will not. The number of Welsh MPs reflects fairly the needs of Wales. The proposals in the White Paper, not just those on the electoral system, do not alter that at all. I find it odd that the shadow Secretary of State is making all sorts of points about the Assembly's future structure when his policy is to abolish it.

Smoking

David Taylor: What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health on legislation to ban smoking in public places in Wales.

Nick Ainger: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had regular discussions over the past few months with the Secretary of State for Health on this matter. Earlier this week, the Government published a consultation on proposals for introducing smoke-free environments in England and Wales.

David Taylor: Early-day motion 333, which was tabled in my name, welcomes the vote of the National Assembly to seek powers to restrict smoking in workplaces and public places. Does the Minister agree that whether someone works in an office or in a non-food pub, they deserve equal rights to health protection? Will he resist any attempt by his ministerial colleagues to weaken the potential for a Welsh blanket ban with exemptions that may make the English one unworkable and unsustainable?

Nick Ainger: Perhaps it would be helpful if I clarified the situation for my hon. Friend. The consultation published on Monday includes proposals for England to provide smoke-free environments through the proposed health improvement and protection Bill. The Welsh Assembly would be given powers to deliver measures that reflect the wishes of the people of Wales. The Assembly Government are currently considering their detailed response to a report published last month by the Assembly's all-party Committee on Smoking in Public Places. Once detailed proposals have been agreed, a further round of consultation will take place in Wales. The power clearly lies with the Welsh Assembly, not with any other ministerial Department.

Hywel Williams: There is agreement across the House and in another place, as well as among a wide range of health bodies in Wales, voluntary organisations and the National Assembly, that a ban is required. Given that fact, and given the health statistics on heart disease and lung cancer, how can the Minister justify a delay of at least three or four years in implementing a ban in Wales? Yet again, we are last in the queue.

Nick Ainger: I am surprised at that question. The consultation will be completed by 6 September and the Government will introduce the health improvement and protection Bill shortly after. Hopefully, legislation for Wales will be delivered by the Assembly to implement bans from the end of 2006, and in 2007 and 2008. Industry, particularly the hospitality industry, needs considerable time to carry out such measures, so I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman's question.

Julie Morgan: Does my hon. Friend agree that most smokers want to give up and would welcome a ban on smoking in workplaces and enclosed public places, as it would help them to do so? Does he further agree that that is the experience in Ireland, where there has been a drop in the number of smokers.

Nick Ainger: Yes, I agree. I congratulate my hon. Friend on her work in bringing this issue to the attention of the House through her private Member's Bill. The evidence in Ireland is very positive, and we should not forget the reason why the Government want to introduce smoking bans in public places. This year, the British Medical Journal produced evidence showing that 30 people a day die from second-hand smoke. The NHS is currently spending £1.7 billion every year on smoking-related diseases, which lead to more than 100,000 deaths a year. Something has to be done, and the Government intend to take action.

Business Incentives

Daniel Kawczynski: What assessments he has made of the effects on businesses in border areas of Wales of the provision of more advantageous incentives to businesses in Wales.

Peter Hain: Businesses on both sides of the England/Wales border continue to prosper from the stable economic climate created by this Government. Support for business in England is excellent, as it is in Wales.

Daniel Kawczynski: In Shrewsbury and Atcham quite a few businesses are shutting up and moving across the border to take advantage of the better grants from the Welsh Development Agency. That is leading to significant concerns for me about unemployment in Shrewsbury. In Europe we are trying to get a level playing field for business, but we do not seem to have that in England and Wales. Can the Secretary of State give me an assurance that he will get the Government to create a more level playing field for business in England and Wales?

Peter Hain: Unemployment in the hon. Gentleman's constituency has fallen by half under the Labour Government, and more jobs are being created all the time. Indeed, there are now 300 new businesses starting up each week in the west midlands, compared with 1,000 businesses that were closing each week under the Conservatives when they were in power. Wales is an attractive climate in which to invest. It has a high skills base, an attractive environment, and its economy is booming under the Government—but all investors, whether they are transferring from England or coming in from outside the UK, have to abide by the same rules for grants and selective regional assistance. The European state aid rules apply equally in Wales and England, so there can be no discriminatory favouritism in Wales compared with England, because we abide by the same rules.

Ian Lucas: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is a fiction to suggest that businesses move to Wales because of assistance? Wrexham does not have regional selective assistance, objective 1 status or objective 2 status, but it has an excellent co-operative work force and a background of economic stability. That is why there is 1.9 per cent. unemployment in my constituency.

Peter Hain: Yes, and Wrexham has an excellent MP who works hard on his constituents' behalf. My hon. Friend makes the very good point that even areas like Wrexham, which do not attract, for example, objective 1 funding, as west Wales and the valleys do, still attract a lot of inward investment because they are great places to locate for the reasons that he explained. Whereas Wales was failing under the Conservatives, it is now going from success to success under the Labour Government, right across the country—north, south, east and west.

Lembit �pik: Nevertheless, does the Secretary of State welcome the apparent recognition by the English Conservatives of the benefits of devolution and European investment in Welsh agriculture and industry? Does he recognise that those achievements are threatened by the current impasse in European negotiations, and will he give an assurance to the House that economic support for these vital Welsh sectors will not be damaged by delays in, or the outcome of, European negotiations on funding?

Peter Hain: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and I am happy to respond to it. There has been some mischief-making by Opposition politicians, especially in The Western Mail recently, suggesting that Wales's objective 1 funding is at risk because of activity by the Government. The truth is that the impasse in the European Council is nothing to do with structural funds; it is due to the stance taken by the President of France, in particular, over the British rebate. We intend to resolve the matter and to get the best possible deal for Wales. We will resolve it as early as we can in order to achieve that deal right across Wales, particularly in respect of objective 1 funding for west Wales and the valleys.

Knife Attacks

Martyn Jones: If he will make a statement on measures being taken to eradicate knife attacks in (a) north Wales and (b) the rest of Wales.

Nick Ainger: Earlier this month, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced a comprehensive package of measures to combat violent crime. The Violent Crime Reduction Bill will ensure that the police and local communities across the country have the necessary powers to reduce violent crime, including crime involving knives.

Martyn Jones: My hon. Friend knows that a number of serious knife attacks have recently occurred in north Wales. Does he agree that the measures relating to knives in the Violent Crime Reduction Bill will help to improve the situation?

Nick Ainger: Yes, I do. The new powers included in the Bill, which applies to both England and Wales, will make it an offence to use other people to hide or carry guns or knives, increase the age limit for purchasing a knife from 16 to 18 and introduce powers for head teachers and other members of school staff to search pupils for knives. The issue must be dealt with, and I am aware of the three incidents in north Wales in which young men were killed in knife attacks. We must work with the police, the community and schools to ensure that young people do not carry knives.

Mark Williams: To counter the growing knife culture, we obviously need to work in schools. Does the Minister accept that making teachers responsible for checking for knives would put them at undue risk and, more fundamentally, harm their relationship with pupils? Does he agree with my union, the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, that teachers should commission the police to undertake searches rather than doing it themselves?

Nick Ainger: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that head teachers and staff should have the power to intervene to search pupils, where it is necessary to do so. The Government and the Association of Chief Police Officers will support head teachers if they judge that it is best to call the police. We want to give head teachers the maximum support and options to keep good order and protect everyone in their schools, and we will discuss those proposals with representatives of all school staff.

David Davies: Does the Minister agree that the best way to reduce violent crime is to ensure that police officers are out on the streets on patrol, not stuck behind their desks filling in forms invented by the Government?

Nick Ainger: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that we have put an extra 172 police officers on the beat in his police force area since 1997, and we have also recruited 300 community support officers throughout Wales. If his party had won the general election, we would have seen a 35 billion cut, much of which would have come from the Home Office budget.

Bill Wiggin: Cardiff Crown court recently jailed a man for life for threatening to kill his girlfriend and stabbing another man in the stomach. He had five previous convictions, including a prison sentence for beating his girlfriend so badly that she spent three days in intensive care with seven fractures to her skull. That man will serve a maximum of six and a half years in prison. Does the Minister agree that the best way to reduce such attacks is to end early release and make sure that dangerous criminals stay where they belongin prison?

Nick Ainger: I cannot comment on the individual case mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. The Government have made it clear that stiff sentences for violent crime and murder are acting as a real deterrent. The hon. Gentleman knows that the Government have introduced a series of Bills to address violent crime, and I hope that the Conservative party will support us.

Prescriptions

Julian Lewis: Whether he has met the National Assembly for Wales Minister for Health to discuss the cross-border implications of the Assembly's plans for the provision of prescriptions in Wales.

Peter Hain: I have regular meetings with the First Minister on a range of issues, including health.

Julian Lewis: I thank the Secretary of State for that uninformative reply. When he had his last such meeting, did he raise the question of prescription tourism, which already costs the Welsh Assembly 3 million a year? Did he raise the 37 million cost to the Assembly of implementing free prescriptions in Wales? Did he raise the question of the 100,000 people who waited more than four hours for A and E treatment and the 284,000 people who are on waiting lists? Does he think that those are proper uses for limited NHS resources?

Peter Hain: That was an impressive recitation of dodgy statistics that simply do not apply in Wales. The fact is that waiting times are coming down and more patients are being seen and treated. In respect of prescriptions, yes, it is the case that there is a cross-border flow between Wales and England; it is roughly equal in terms of English patients being served by Welsh GPs and Welsh patients being served by English GPs. However, it is true that Welsh patients who go to see English GPs do not get free prescriptions and the Assembly is considering that.

Jennifer Willott: Does the Minister accept that while cross-border differences in prescription charges are a big positive benefit for Wales, other variations are a big negativefor example, the massive increase in ambulance response times, with some areas achieving only 40 per cent. of their target emergency call-out times? Will the Minister commit to discussing those differences with the Welsh Assembly Health Minister at the earliest opportunity?

Peter Hain: Obviously, we want a first-class ambulance service as we develop a first-class health service, and I shall certainly bear in mind the points that that hon. Lady makes. However, I am sure that she would want to welcome the 450 more consultants and the 7,300 extra nurses in Wales under Labour, compared with cut after cut under the Conservatives.

National Assembly Powers

Nicholas Winterton: If he will take steps to increase the scope of the powers of the National Assembly for Wales.

Peter Hain: The Government's proposals are contained in the White Paper, Better Governance for Wales, which I published on 15 June.

Nicholas Winterton: Having served with the right hon. Gentleman on the Modernisation Committee, I know that he believes very fervently in democracy, but does he agree that there is considerable frustration in Wales about the Assembly's lack of legislative authority and powers? Will he have another full referendum in Wales to see whether people want more legislative powers and more devolution, or would like to scrap devolution altogether?

Peter Hain: The hon. Gentleman speaks with the same voice as the shadow Secretary of State, who wants, as the hon. Gentleman appears to want, to abolish the National Assembly for Wales and to go back to the kind of rule that we had under the Conservatives when they trampled all over Walesand as result, every Tory MP was cleaned out of Wales in the 1997 election. Having said that, the hon. Gentleman was a very good member of the Modernisation Committee and I pay tribute to him for that. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is far too much noise in the House.

Adam Price: Yesterday, Andrew Davies, the Economic Development and Transport Minister in the Assembly, said that he was extremely concerned about the poor performance of the Welsh Development Agency's inward investment division. Will the Secretary of State therefore consider giving the National Assembly the power to vary corporation taxes so that we could have the kind of tax breaks that have been so successful in Ireland? I understand that the hon. Member for Normanton (Ed Balls) is keen, so he might have some luck with the Chancellor.

Peter Hain: The answer is no, because, just like Plaid Cymru's proposals for varying income tax for Wales, it would raise an immediate question mark as to whether the extra spending per head in Wales provided by the Treasury was still justified. This is the kind of gobbledegook economics that is typical of Plaid Cymru.

Countryside and Rights of Way Act

Martin Caton: What discussions he has had with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the application of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 to Wales.

Nick Ainger: That is a matter for the National Assembly. The right-to-roam provisions came into effect in Wales on 28 May. As a result, almost a quarter of the Welsh countryside is now open to the public. I will meet Carwyn Jones shortly to discuss that and other matters.

Martin Caton: Does my hon. Friend agree that the CROW Act has been one of the major achievements of a Labour Government, not only in extending access to the countryside but in other countryside provisions, especially in relation to areas of outstanding natural beauty? My hon. Friend knows that Gower was the first designated area of outstanding natural beauty in the country. May I invite him to visit Gower next year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of that designation and the success of the Act?

Nick Ainger: I am more than happy to visit my hon. Friend's beautiful constituency and I am grateful for his support for the implementation of the CROW Act. It has given an increasing advantage to the rural parts of Wales. According to the Wales Tourist Board, walkers contribute 550 million annually to the Welsh economy and that should increase with the new access regime. My hon. Friend may also be pleased to know that the Welsh Assembly is in discussion with the Countryside Council for Wales to examine actively options for extending open access to coastal areas, which would include his constituency, under the Act.

PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked

Engagements

Tony Wright: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 22 June.

Tony Blair: This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I will have further such meetings later today.

Tony Wright: Does the Prime Minister recall that, last year, we had a celebration to mark the centenary of the entente cordiale? Last week, the President of France said that my right hon. Friend was pathetic and tragic and demanded a gesture of solidarity from him, Will my right hon. Friend explain to President Chirac that what is pathetic and tragic is the fact that 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day while each European cow gets $2.5 a day in subsidy? Will he tell the President that the only gesture of solidarity worth making is one that does something about that?

Tony Blair: I thank my hon. Friend for the questionalthough I think he was actually referring to the discussion. However, I believe it is important that we make it clear that reform of the common agricultural policy is in the interests not only of Europe, but, as my hon. Friend rightly says, of the poorest parts of the world, which need to be able to get rid of export subsidies for agriculture in the wealthy parts of the world for their economies to flourish. Change in the CAP is therefore not only important, relevant and right for the European Union, but an essential part of getting a fair deal for the poorest countries in the world.

Michael Howard: Today, the chief executive of the Citizens Advice service said that the tax credit system
	is failing the very families most in need of extra money, causing hardship the system is designed to prevent, and making it more difficult for people to save or to hold down a job.
	Does the Prime Minister agree with that?

Tony Blair: It is also important to point out that
	The CAB service strongly welcomes the government's commitments to make work pay, abolish child poverty and to increase the proportion of lone parents in employment. We recognise the financial gains available from tax credits.
	It is true that the report goes on, like the ombudsman, to make criticisms of the system. We are trying to address them, but let me point out that, although we acknowledge the force of the criticisms, 6 million families and 10 million children benefit from the tax credits. It is important to get a sense of balance when we discuss them.

Michael Howard: It is indeed important to get a sense of balance but the Prime Minister is in danger of sounding extremely complacent. The Citizens Advice service report states that the tax credit system
	is backfiring for large numbers of families
	and has
	plunged many below the breadline and into mounting debt;
	that
	some families have been left in severe hardship;
	that some
	have been threatened with repossession or eviction;
	and that for others,
	CAB advisers have had to arrange Salvation Army food parcels
	because families were left without enough money to eat. Does that sound to the Prime Minister like a system that is performing very well?

Tony Blair: As I said a moment ago, we accept entirely the problems that the Citizens Advice service report and the ombudsman's report identified, and it is important that we address them. Indeed, some were addressed by the statement that my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General made on 26 May. We apologise for the hardship and distress that have been caused to some families and we are taking action to change the circumstances in which they find themselves. All I say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman is that we must also recognise that millions of families have benefited from tax credits, to the tune of thousands of pounds a year. Those families were often forgotten under the old system. They did not qualify for family credit and were left to languish on the dole for long periods of time. It is important to realise when we discuss the system that both the Citizens Advice service and the ombudsman say that the principles of the system are right and should be maintained.

Michael Howard: Figures this month show that 700,000 awards were underpaid in 200304, that 1.9 million were overpaid, and that the amount of overpayment was almost 2 billion. I ask the Prime Minister whether we are dealing with a system that is performing very well? He will know that that is whatthe Paymaster General told the House in February. The ombudsman says that the Paymaster General's reassurances
	did not give a complete picture of what has been happening, and the devastating effects the IT problems have had on some individuals' lives, in terms of stress, financial hardship and living with continuous uncertainty regarding their awards.
	Has the Prime Minister asked the Paymaster General for an explanation of the answers she gave the House in February?

Tony Blair: As the right hon. and learned Gentleman has quoted the ombudsman, let me also quote what she says, right at the beginning of her report. I hope that he will also accept this:
	This report does not suggest that the new tax credit system is in general disarray; on the contrary it recognises that, given the scale of the undertaking, its introduction has been broadly successful.
	It is fair to put that on the other side of the ledger. The problems of overpayment to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman is drawing our attention are, of course, right. There is one difficulty, though. With any such system, when people change jobs, as some 3 million people do every year, and when about 300,000 families who are eligible for tax credits undergo substantial financial changes, there has to be some way of compensating for that and ensuring that people are neither underpaid nor overpaid.
	I acceptas did my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General in her statement on 26 Maythat there are serious issues to be addressed, and we are addressing them by, for example, ensuring that people have far better information for the claimants, identifying the families that might be most at risk in respect of changes in their circumstances, and making improvements to the information technology system. All of this has to be done, and we are doing it. What would be wrong, however, would be to suggest that, overall, tax credits have not helped millions of people, because they have.

Michael Howard: And that was something that I never suggested. The answer given by the Paymaster General to the House has been criticised in the most direct terms by the ombudsman. I asked the Prime Minister whether he had sought an explanation from the Paymaster General for her answer, and it is perfectly clear that hehas not. The ombudsman makes 12 specific recommendations in her report, and she also raises some fundamental questions about the whole system that she says need to be addressed. Will the Prime Minister now accept all those recommendations and address those fundamental questions? Will he also give an undertaking that the 800,000 families who currently receive their tax credit through Jobcentre Plus will not be moved on to the Inland Revenue system this year, as is currently planned?

Tony Blair: My right hon. Friend the Paymaster General is going to make a statement after Prime Minister's questions today, and she will deal with some of the issues that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has raised. In respect of the ombudsman's recommendations, we will obviously study them very carefully because there has to be a balance between the interests of the families receiving the tax credit and those of the taxpayer as a whole. Despite the way in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has put these questions, however, I think that we are in agreement. The tax credit system is the right system, and as a whole, it is benefiting millions of families, but it is correct to say that, at the moment, it is failing some families. That is unacceptable and we will take the necessary measures to remedy the situation.

Ken Purchase: The Government have rightly received praise for their very considerable increase in housing budgets, especially when compared with the Tory starvation years. The Prime Minister will know, however, that 300,000 families are currently registered as applicants for council housing. Does he agree that it would be sensible to encourage local authorities to build new houses rather than simply arranging stock transfers and arm's-length management organisations, which do not in themselves create a single tenancy or put a lick of paint on a single windowsill?

Tony Blair: As my hon. Friend knows, the budget for social housing has been increased substantially, and has been increased again by 50 per cent. I disagree with only one thing that he said. I do not think that this can be done only through traditional local authority provision; I think a mix of provision is necessary. I think that many housing associations and other non-governmental bodies also do a superb job in providing homes for people.

Charles Kennedy: Given that the Prime Minister's current majority of 67 is based on 35 per cent. of the popular vote, and given that the Government are set to force through further authoritarian measures such as compulsory identity cards, the ending of trial by jury and a restriction of people's right to protest, must the Prime Minister not face the fact that here in Britain we are close to experiencing a tyranny of the minority? Does he think that the composition of the House of Commons accurately reflects what the British public voted for on 5 May?

Tony Blair: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that just a trifle exaggerated, in all honesty? Let me take the point about trial by jury in complicated fraud cases. The reason for what we are doing is perfectly simple. We are spending literally millions and millions of pounds on a very small number of cases in which the issues are often hugely complex. It has been suggested by independent report after independent report that we need to change the system, so we are doing that. Linking that with proportional representation, which I assume the right hon. Gentleman is trying to do, is slightly difficult, if I may respectfully say so.
	All electoral systems have their flaws, but if we had a system of proportional representation in which, for example, the Liberal Democrats held the balance of power, might that not be something of a tyranny of the minority?

Charles Kennedy: May I come back to the Prime Minister, and indeed to the excellent first question that he was asked? Now that one referendum appears to be off the agenda, may I make a constructive suggestion for another? The Labour party manifesto on which the Prime Minister has just stood and been re-elected says that there will be a further review of the voting systems in this country. Will that be yet another pointless exercise, or can the Prime Minister give the British public a guarantee here and now that during this Parliament they will have the democratic right, through a referendum, to vote for a system of proportional representation?

Tony Blair: I can absolutely assure the right hon. Gentleman that it will not be a pointless exercise. What I cannot assure him of, I am afraid, is that it will result in a referendum on proportional representation.
	I can only say to the Lib Dems that what with all that is going on in the world today, this seems to be a pretty odd set of questions.

Colin Challen: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his continuing efforts to achieve an international consensus on tackling climate change. Does he agree that we all face both a personal and a political challenge? Would he consider joining me and other Members who have made a commitment to reduce our personal carbon emissions by 25 per cent. over the next five years?

Tony Blair: There is an answer to that somewhere here, but I cannot quite find it. I shall have to get back to my hon. Friend with the precise implications, but I think that in respect of Downing street there are already measures designed to reduce emissionsat least of the CO 2 kind.

Peter Bone: A year ago, a 17-year-old student who lived in my constituency, Alexine Melnik, was killed by a careless driver. The careless driver was fined 500. Does the Prime Minister agree that there should be a new offence of causing death by careless driving? When will legislation to that effect be presented to the House?

Tony Blair: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would want to pay tribute to the work of his predecessor, Paul Stinchcombe, on that issue. He is absolutely right that it is important to ensure that we toughen the law in respect of death by careless driving. Our consultation exercise ended on 6 May. We are currently analysing the responses received. We will publish our response shortly but, as a result of the campaign that was launched by the hon. Gentleman's predecessor, we made certain commitments before the election, which we will honour. It is high time we realised that, as a result of toughening up the law, around 10,000 fewer people are now killed or injured each year on our roads than 10 years ago. We need to ensure that the law is commensurate with the degree of public concern.

Kali Mountford: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is looking at the appropriate use of statins. Given that in my constituency more than 6 per cent. of men die prematurely of heart disease, is it not right to ensure that appropriate prescribing of this drug, alongside the good exercise and diet plans that GPs currently give patients, is included as part of the programme?

Tony Blair: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The importance of statins has been recognised by the fact that we have increased spending to about 700 million a year. A report has just been published by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence showing why it is important that we broaden the use of statins, so I can assure her that the commitment and the investment are there from the Government, and we are working closely with GPs to make sure that that is used properly. The increase in the use of statins is one reason why deaths from cardiac disease have fallen by about 20 per cent.

Anne McIntosh: Will the Prime Minister join me in extending our sympathy to those who suffered in the devastating floods in North Yorkshire, particularly in Thirsk, Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe and Helmsley in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway)? Will the Prime Minister praise the emergency services for their swift response in ensuring that there was no loss of life, but regret the loss of livestock, crops and personal possessions? Will he please dig deep into the coffers of the Government to provide the millions of pounds needed for road repairs, bridge repairs, the clean-up operation and, more especially, the flood alleviation scheme in Thirsk, which might have prevented the damage to Thirsk on this occasion? Will he help North Yorkshire

Mr. Speaker: Order. I call the Prime Minister.

Tony Blair: I certainly join the hon. Lady in sympathising with all those who have lost possessions or livestock, or had their homes damaged as a result of the floods on Sunday. I understand that in this case one month's rain fell in two to three hours. In respect of the flood defences, we are investing about 500 million each year in flood and coastal erosion management. That is obviously a huge increase on before. I am sure that the hon. Lady will be able to meet the relevant Ministers to discuss further the things that could be done but, if we look back over the past few years, investment in flood defences has seen a remarkable uplift. I am afraid it is a feature of our current situation that, as a result of changes in our climate, we have to take these measures.

Madeleine Moon: The pupils of Tondu primary school, like many of our school children, dream of seeing an end to world poverty, climate change and trade injustice. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the members of the G8 summit have a unique opportunity to turn those children's dreams into reality, and that to fail would be to fail the children of many generations?

Tony Blair: I am delighted to say that the J8 programme has elicited an enthusiastic response across the country. It has been developed by the Department for Education and Skills alongside Morgan Stanley. The fact that so many young people have been closely involved in making the case for action on climate change, third world debt and aid is an example of the idealism of our young people. The fact that so many schools have engaged in those projects is wonderful. Let us hope that the result of Gleneagles matches their aspirations.

Michael Howard: I am sure that we all agree with the sentiments that have just been expressed by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon), and, indeed, with Prime Minister's reply. Today, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that Britain is being transformed from
	an environmental laggard to an environmental leader.
	But yesterday, the European Environment Agency said that we were the worst in Europe for increases in carbon emissions from electricity and heat production. Without wishing to cause another row with Europe, can the Prime Minister reconcile those two statements?

Tony Blair: First, we will of course meet our Kyoto targets for reduction in greenhouse gasesa 12.5 per cent. reductionwhich is important. It is correct that there have been increases in CO 2 emissions, partly as a result of the strength of the economy, but overall, climate change emissions have fallen by 5 per cent. This country will be one of the few countries to actually meet their Kyoto targets.

Michael Howard: In 1997, the Prime Minister promised to cut carbon emissions by 20 per cent. Since then, carbon emissions have risen. Last week, the Minister concerned announced a delay in the UK climate change review programme. Is it not the case that Britain is becoming the dirty man of Europe, and that the Prime Minister's moral authority to persuade others to tackle climate change is being fatally compromised?

Tony Blair: That is a ludicrous thing to say, and no, I do not accept that at all. As I said, we will meet our Kyoto targets. We have established the target of 10 per cent. renewable energy by 2010, and incidentally, we have also introduced the climate change levy, which is saving us literally millions of tonnes a yearopposed by the Conservatives. I do not know what specific measures the right hon. and learned Gentleman has. We are investing far more in energy efficiency than his Government ever invested, and we are investing more in helping pensioners and others to make their homes more energy-efficient. If he has some specific measures to propose, let us hear them, but actually, most of the measures that we have taken to reduce emissions he has opposed.

Andrew Dismore: My right hon. Friend will know that this is refugee week, which began in my constituency last Sunday with our local festival. Does he agree that refugee week provides an excellent opportunity to dispel the myths and disinformation that some circulate about refugees and   asylum seekers, and to celebrate the enormous contribution that refugees have made over the yearsindeed, over the centuriesto British life, public and private, and economically, socially and culturally?

Tony Blair: My hon. Friend is right in saying that we should always acknowledge the tremendous contribution made by migrants to this country over the years. It is important to recognise that, as is demonstrated by many in this House, many of us have ancestors who migrated from abroad. We recognise the strong contribution that migration makes, but it is also important to recognise that we have to take action to deal with asylum applications, which are now down by more than half, and to introduce the controls on immigration that we have indicated. This will allow us to continue to have people migrating to our country whom we need for our economy, while making sure that proper and robust rules are in place. That is the right balance for today's world.

David Amess: On 11 July in Leigh-on-Sea, which is in my constituency, the Guinness Book of Records will attend an event that I have organised. A world record attempt will be made to gather together the most people aged 100 and over living in a town, which will be celebrated with a tea party. Will the Prime Minister wish the participants well, and if a record is achieved, will this rotten Government take the credit for people living so long in Leigh-on-Sea?

Tony Blair: I think that we should give them the credit for having lived so long. I was going to read out the statistics on how much we have helped pensioners, and so on, but instead let me point out that we should all send hearty congratulations to everybody who has made it to 100. Let us hope that we join them in the years to come.

Kate Hoey: The Prime Minister will be aware that up to a million peoplethe poorest in Africahave been made homeless in the last couple of weeks by the thuggish and brutal behaviour of Mugabe. What will my right hon. Friend and the G8 leaders do to put pressure on Mbeki, who has so far refused even to condemn what has happened? Does he agree that we cannot make poverty history in Africa until we make dictators such as Mugabe history?

Tony Blair: I totally agree with my hon. Friend about the nature of Mugabe's regime. We and others are always making it clear that those in the region have to take the necessary action to deal with the situation in Zimbabwe. I do not agree with my hon. Friend, however, when she says that unless and until we deal with Mugabe, we cannot deal with the problem of poverty in Africa. We should do both. There is a strong case for saying that African leadership needs better governance, better protection from corruption, better conflict resolution. I abhor the Mugabe regime every bit as much as my hon. Friend does, but I do not believe that we should allow it to get in the way of our helping those countries, particularly those that have made great forward strides in respect of democracy and better governance, whose children and adults still live in appalling poverty.

Brooks Newmark: In 1993, the Chancellor declared:
	I want . . . the end of the means test for our elderly people.
	My constituent Mrs. Phyllis Webb and the Braintree pensioners action group would like to know whether the Prime Minister feels bound by that commitment.

Tony Blair: I feel very proud of the fact that the Government have helped pensioners so much over the years[Interruption.] Oh, yes, we have. Millions of pensioners have benefited from the pension credit, the winter fuel allowance, free TV licences for over-75s and help with free bus passes. Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that we are happy to compare our record in 2005 and the help that we have given to pensioners with the help that they were getting in 1993. The hon. Gentleman should go back and tell pensioners in Braintree that, even though they elected a Conservative MP, they should be very glad that they still have a Labour Government.

Ashok Kumar: I praise my right hon. Friend for attending the parliamentary links day organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry and for his great support for science and engineering, but does he agree that, in delivering the G8 agenda on Africa and climate change, he will need strong support from the scientific and engineering community?

Tony Blair: I totally agree. I was delighted to attend the parliamentary links day and to see that it was a thriving all-party occasion. Science will be particularly important in dealing with the killer diseases in Africa, and the science and technology behind dealing with climate change is also crucial. That is why it is so important that science forms a strong part of what we do in the G8.

Jeremy Wright: Does the Prime Minister accept that busy village halls are often at the heart of thriving rural communities such as those that I represent in Rugby and Kenilworth? However, the huge increases proposed in the Licensing Act 2003increases in paperwork and in the cost of entertainment licences, rising from 30 to more than 900will put vital resources at risk. Will the Prime Minister do something about that?

Tony Blair: I do understand the hon. Gentleman's concerns. We tried to introduce a licensing regime that puts more power in the hands of local people. I understand the problems of village hallsI have heard about them myselfand we will look further into them to see if anything can be done. Obviously, in the end, we need a licensing regime that pays its way.

John Grogan: Given the importance of manifesto promises, will the Prime Minister confirm that our manifesto commitment to a publicly owned Royal Mail fully restored to health means that 100 per cent. of the shares will continue to be owned by Her Majesty's Government?

Tony Blair: I can confirm to my hon. Friend absolutely that our manifesto sets out our policy. We have given the Royal Mail greater commercial freedom and have no plans whatever to privatise it.

Roger Gale: On Monday, the adjudicator, Dame Barbara Mills, published her annual report, which revealed that 50 per cent. of the complaints that she considered were related to tax credits and that of those, 86 per cent. were found in favour of the complainant. Faced with that and two other damning reports, the House might reasonably expect the responsible Minister to have resigned by now. Given that that has not happened, will the First Lord of the Treasury now give an undertaking that those who have faced demands for repayment of money will be given an amnesty in each and every case where the Treasury is responsible?

Tony Blair: In fact, my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General has said already that we will not seek to get the money back if the error is on the part of the Inland Revenue. In the interests of the general taxpayer, however, we obviously cannot say that overpayments resulting from a claimant's change of circumstances should stand. A moment or two ago, I said that criticisms were made in both the CAB report and the ombudsman's report. We have taken those criticisms on board and are acting on them.

Brian H Donohoe: The modern apprenticeship scheme is to be welcomed, even though it happened to be opposed by the Opposition. Traditionally, youngsters leaving school have taken on apprenticeships. Many years ago, I was an apprentice and I remember the time when 100 apprentices were taken on every year at the shipyard. What is my right hon. Friend going to do about bringing back apprenticeships for plumbers, joiners, fitters and all the traditional trades? That would make the current crisis in those areas much more manageable.

Tony Blair: My hon. Friend raises a point that is important for the economy, and that is why the Learning and Skills Council has almost doubled spending on apprenticeships. By the end of this year we will have almost 300,000 apprenticeships, which is fantastic for our young people. The other thing that we have to do in our school reforms is to start making sure that a proper vocational route is available for young people at the age of 14. That will allow them to gain work experience with employers at an early age. We have concentrated on bringing back apprenticeships in the past few years. There is more to do, but the numbers coming through show that the system is working.

Tax Credits

Dawn Primarolo: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I want to make a statement on the reforms that we have made, and are making, in the operation of the tax credits system, and to answer point by point the reports from the parliamentary ombudsman and the Citizen's Advice Bureau that were published today, and the adjudicator's report that was published earlier in the week. Those reports deal mainly with the operation of the system in its first year of introduction.
	On 26 May, I announced to this House a series of measures to build upon the reforms that we have already made to the tax credits system. Those include measures to streamline procedures for recipients to inform Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs of the changes in their income during the course of the year, and to simplify the information provided to families in award notices. I also announced a review so that we could make changes in the procedures for dealing with disputed awards.
	The Department is improving the helpline so that families receiving tax credits can have all their queries dealt with in one go and all their changes processed with one call to the helpline. Where there is a dispute, I have asked HMRC to consider suspending recovery of excess payments until the dispute is resolved. Where there is hardship, I have asked it to ensure that the additional payments in the system are made.
	In other words, I have already taken measures to act on each of the major administrative issues raised by the parliamentary ombudsman and the CAB. Two weeks ago, during a debate in the House on these issues, I offeredand have subsequently agreedto meet a group of MPs to discuss these issues in detail. Today, I will be writing to the ombudsman and the CAB about the changes that we have already made. I will be offering to meet them to discuss the detail of the reforms now being introduced.
	I come to the issues of policy. As the CAB report states, tax credits are the best way to deal with society's responsibility to help with the costs of bringing up children and tackling child poverty. The background both to the introduction of tax credits and to the reports out today is that more people than ever before are receiving tax credits to help with the costs of bringing up their children. In total, more than 6 million familiesabout 20 million people, including 10 million childrenbenefit from tax credits. Four in 10 families pay no net tax as a result of tax credits, and the take-up in the first year exceeds 80 per cent.so in each of our constituencies, nearly 10,000 families, on average, are benefiting.
	As a result of an economy where people move between jobs more often and their circumstances change more quickly, the challenge is to adjust child tax credits to changing income patterns as quickly as possible. In fact, 3 million people now change jobs every year, and theirincome changes are often substantial. Some 700,000 children are born every year and receive different rates of child tax credit, according to their families' circumstances.
	The fast-changing nature of the economy is such that around 300,000 people who receive tax credits experience very large changes in their family income10,000, or more, during a year. In introducing the child tax credit, the big change that we made was to move from a fixed payment based on past income, not on actual income, which was recognised as unresponsive to families' changing circumstances and therefore unfair.
	When the new system was introduced, we decided that, during the year, we would be prepared to adjust tax credits to changes in family circumstances. So the issue for the Government and, indeed, for all parties that want to comment on these issues in the House and beyond is whether we return to a fixed system, which is clearly unfair and does not adjust for changes in family income during the year; whether we operate a system whereby we compensate people when their income falls, but do not adjust credits downwards when their income rises, even when it rises substantially by 10,000 a year or more; or whether we retain the principle of getting the balance right between taxpayers and individual family circumstances.
	I have always been happy to listen to and to take note of the views of all parties on these issues, but I have to tell the House that, when we consulted widely before the implementation of the tax credit, the overwhelming consensus was that a balance should be struck between the needs of the taxpayer and those of the families who claim and that the system should adjust to any drop in income and therefore compensate the claimant in full and only respond to increases in family income during the year, when the family income increases by 2,500 or more a year. I also have to tell the House that, when these issues were voted on in the House, there was a clear majority in favour of these proposals.
	Of course, I will continue to keep the House fully updated on recent developments in the tax credit system, as I have endeavoured to do in debates and statements in the past. The ombudsman makes reference in her report to a small part of one sentence of one written answer and suggests that it offers an incomplete picture. I have repeatedly answered questions on this issue. Indeed, in a debate on 26 January, I told the House that there had been problems going back to the introduction of the computer system.
	More recently, I issued a statement on 26 May, setting out the situation, the action that has been taken and what more we will do to improve the system. There was an Adjournment debate on 7 June at which I responded to many of the issues raised by hon. Members and, again, outlined the changes. And I will, of course, keep the House updated on the reforms that we are putting in place to improve the system and report back on my discussions with voluntary and community sector organisations.

George Osborne: The reports today from the parliamentary ombudsman and the CAB paint a devastating picture of the administrative chaos, computer errors and political misjudgments at the heart of the tax credit system. The response of the Paymaster General todaythat she made a written statement a month ago and replied to an Adjournment debate in the Houseis not enough, as the CAB makes clear in its report today, not least because some of the changes that the right hon. Lady was talking about may be 18 months away. That is not good enough for a system that is supposed to help low-income families, but in the words of the CAB has
	plunged many below the breadline and into mounting debt.
	Does the Paymaster General agree with the CAB about that?
	Does the right hon. Lady agree with the ombudsman, who said today that many families
	have to borrow money from family and friends to support their children, using up their life's savings or running up credit card debts in order to pay for child care costs, buy food and get to work?
	[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) should not shout across the Chamber. I know that he does that regularly but he should not be doing it just now.

George Osborne: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I was merely quoting from the ombudsman. It would be interesting to know whether the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell), who may make a contribution later, agrees with the ombudsman and the CAB.
	The Paymaster General expresses regret for the mistakes that have been made, but she said this morning that for a huge majority of families the system is working. But will she confirm that, of the 6 million families receiving tax credits in 200304, 1.9 million were overpaid almost 2 billion and that a further 713,000 were underpaid half a billion pounds. That is more than a third of all the families claiming tax credit, so how on earth can she say that the system is working well for a huge majority of families? How can she say that when in her own constituency in Bristol almost half the 9,200 people who claimed tax credit received an incorrect amount and the taxpayer has had to pay out 3.7 million in her constituency alone in overpayments?
	I have five specific questions about the future operation of the system. First, the ombudsman says that from the evidence she has seen the Revenue has yet to adopt a model for dealing with low-income families that takes full account both of the complexities of tax credits and of the vulnerabilities of their lives. Does the Paymaster General agree with that key recommendation of the report? Indeed, will she introduce a human face in the system so that judgments about clawing back overpayments are made by an individual, not a computer?
	Secondly, will the right hon. Lady accept the recommendations in the report that families should be made aware of what is happening to their credits, told how they can appeal and informed about the hardship payments available to them, not because they go to their local MP or CAB but as a matter of right, as part of the tax credit system?
	Thirdly, will the Paymaster General consider writing off all excess and overpayments caused by official error, not just in the past but as part of the system, so that Ministers do not have to come to the House announcing amnesties every year? She should make that part of the system so that low-income families do not suffer due to the Treasury's mistakes.
	Fourthly, will the right hon. Lady suspend with immediate effect plans to move a further 800,000 of the lowest income families who currently receive their tax credits from Jobcentre Plus to the Treasury's chaotic systems? My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition specifically asked the Prime Minister about that point; he did not respond, but it is of enormous interest to every MP. Will the Paymaster General respond and make it clear that she will delay the migration of those 800,000 people to the Revenue until the problems are sorted out?
	Fifthly, I turn to the Paymaster General's accountability to the House of Commons. On 7 February, she said of the tax credit system:
	The system has been stable and performing very well in terms of availability and speed for well over a year.[Official Report, 7 February 2005; Vol. 430, c. 1245W.]
	Yet the ombudsman says that
	the cases I have investigated lead me to the conclusion that such reassurances did not give a complete picture of what has been happening.
	Is the right hon. Lady saying that the ombudsman is wrong? She did not say that in her statement but if that is so she should say it in her response to me.
	Finally, will the Chancellor, who dreamt up the tax credit system, with all its complexities, respond to what the ombudsman calls
	the fundamental question as to whether, for people on modest incomes . . . such inbuilt instability or uncertainty really works?
	The ombudsman says that needs very careful consideration by Parliament and the Government. Is not it time that the Chancellor responded to what the ombudsman said today by setting up a far-reaching independent review of tax credits?
	The chaotic system of tax credits is having a devastating impact on the lives of some of Britain's poorest families. Do not they and Britain deserve better?

Dawn Primarolo: The hon. Gentleman needs to be reminded that his party supported the tax credits, including the flexible system and the way in which that is approached. The ombudsman's report says:
	This report does not suggest that the new tax credits system is in general disarray; on the contrary it recognises that, given the scale of the undertaking, its introduction has been broadly successful.
	It goes on to say that new challenges need to be met, however. The CAB's summary says:
	We firmly support tax credits as a vehicle for directing substantial extra money towards lower income families.
	The issues thus revolve around administration.
	I shall address each of the six points that the hon. Gentleman made. First, he asked about adopting a response to claimants of clearly explaining their entitlement and what that is based on and, as it says in the ombudsman's report, working on a case-by-case basis. That was covered by my statement on 26 May and I reiterated the position at the beginning of my comments today. I have accepted that the ombudsman's point was correct and I have already started acting on that.
	The hon. Gentleman said that claimants should be made aware of their entitlement when dealing with disputed claims. Again, my statement on 26 May referred to that and my opening comments today confirmed what I said. I especially made the point about the suspension of disputed claims.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about writing off official error. He knows full well that in cases in which either an administrative or information technology error has been made by the Inland Revenue and it would be reasonable to assume that the claimants did not realise that a payment had been made in error, that money has been written off. In my statement on 26 May, I made it clear that we needed to review the procedure and determine not only whether to suspend recovery until a dispute has been resolved, but how we communicate with claimants so that the Department can ensure that they know exactly what their entitlements are.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about the transfer of jobseeker's allowance and income support to the system. I have told him that the system is not in disarray, and that is what the ombudsman says. I have told the House repeatedly that we keep the transfer under careful consideration. We plan to start it later this year, but I assure him that if that is not the case for any reason, I will inform him and also the House.
	My accountability has been questioned. First, I have answered all questions about the matter, both written and oral. Secondly, I have made statements to the House. Thirdly, I have been involved in debates on the tax credit system in the House. Fourthly, I meet hon. Members and delegations from community and voluntary organisations to discuss exactly these points.
	As the hon. Gentleman said, his final question was fundamental. When he talks about the inheritance and the problems that families face, he must acknowledge that the system in place before failed to tackle child poverty, failed to respond to the needs and changing circumstances of families and failed to recognise the changing nature of the labour market. He does not realise that the income change for 300,000 of the people who have received overpayments is in excess of 10,000 per year. Is he seriously suggesting that if an overpayment is not disputed and the claimant is prepared to pay it back, we should not collect it? That is ridiculous.

David Laws: Is not the truth that the tax credit system has been in chaos and that Ministers have persistently been in denial about the extent of the problems, and that they still seem to be in denial? What is chaos if it is not 1.9 million people overpaid 2 billion of taxpayers' money that should not have been paid out, if it is not 700,000 underpayments and if it is not two thirds of the overpaid awards going to households that the ombudsman describes as on modest incomes? Is not the Paymaster General more concerned than the impression she gave about the conclusion in the ombudsman's report,
	that the greatest difficulties
	as a consequence of these problems
	are suffered by the core group that the tax credit system is aimed at helping, namely families on low incomes?
	Are not those precisely the people who are losing out as a consequence of the endemic overpayments in the system?
	Are there not three questions, in particular, on which we need clear answers from the Paymaster General? First, there is the vital issue of overpayments. Will the right hon. Lady clarify the statement that the Prime Minister made earlier in Prime Minister's questions, in which he appeared to give the impression that overpayments as a consequence of official error are to be written off. That was very different from what the right hon. Lady has told us. She knows perfectly well that there are a multiplicity of cases where the Inland Revenue has made the errors. Yet at the end of the day money is still being clawed back from people. What will be done to tackle that problem? How many of the overpayments due to official error will be written off? Can the right hon. Lady give us an absolute guarantee that from now on the system will be one of investigation first and recovery second, and not what we have had, which has been recovery first and then investigation?
	On a point of law, can the Paymaster General tell us whether she has received the legal advice that is referred to by the ombudsman in her report as to whether the Inland Revenue has been acting lawfully over the past year in the way in which the recovery policy has been applied? Can she give us a clear answer on that?
	On a second point, what is the right hon. Lady doing about the chaos of the computer system that has generated so many of these problems? When will that be resolved?
	On a third point, is the right hon. Lady more concerned than the impression that she gave in her statement about the ombudsman's observation that her report raises
	the fundamental question as to whether
	a financial support system with such inbuilt instability or uncertainty can truly meet the needs of people on modest incomes? If it is so obvious that we should have the system that we now have, why did we have fixed awards under the working families tax credit and why were there fixed awards under the family credit system? Should not the right hon. Lady examine that issue seriously?
	On a final issue, I feel almost sorry for the Paymaster General. The system was introduced by the Chancellor and he has been very successful in claiming the credittaking the credit, as it werefor the system of tax credits. He has left the Paymaster General to mop up all of the difficult issues that we have been discussing. Does the right hon. Lady accept that she is ultimately accountable, and that if these problems, which are affecting some of the most vulnerable families, are not resolved over the next few weeks, she ultimately must accept the responsibility that comes with her office?

Dawn Primarolo: I do accept the responsibility, and that is why I am here. I do not need the hon. Gentleman's sympathy for doing my job, although I think that he was offering it rather tongue in cheek. Perhaps I should remind him of his party's policy at the time when tax credits were introduced. I quote from the then Liberal Democrat spokesman:
	we must support giving extra help to lower wage families with children.
	The hon. Gentleman said that in the course of the Bill that introduced the tax credit system. He said:
	That is why we need stability
	when the system is introduced
	with no major overhauls, no name changes and no complete rewrites. Let us give the system a chance to settle down and give people a chance to get familiar with it. Stepping aside from point scoring. [Official Report, 7 July 2003, Vol. 408, c. 836838]
	That was what the previous spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats said on the issue.
	The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) asked five questions. The first was on write-off. I explained today and I have explained in previous debates, in written answers and personally to the hon. Gentleman during meetings how the compensation and the write-offs occur. The hon. Gentleman then said that he wanted a system of investigation first and suspension afterwards. He clearly was not listeningagainto what I said today, to what I said on the 26 May and to what I said on the Adjournment debate on 7 June, at which he was present. I asked the Revenue to suspend recovery while the disputes were being investigated.
	The hon. Gentleman asked a technical question about legal advice. If he will forgive me, I need to write to him on that. I will also respond in writing to the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne).
	The hon. Member for Yeovil reiterates the point that the system is in chaos. It is not. The ombudsman says that it is not; she says that there are particular problems, which I acknowledge. They are important problems and they need to be sorted out. That is why, in making my statement on 26 May, in what I have said in the House at Question Time, in what I have said in written answers and in what I said on the Adjournment debate on 7 June, I have acknowledged all of that. I do that both inside and outside the House when I am asked questions on these matters.
	There is a fundamental issue, and that is why the hon. Gentleman must make a choice. I know that that is difficult for Liberal Democrats. They are not keen on making choices because it is much better just to attack everything in sight. The choice is between a flat rate unresponsive system that is unfair, that is fixed and that does not help families to meet the changing needs in the economy, or to have flexibility. Those are the two models. What the House has to decide, what the Government have to decide and what the Opposition parties have to come to a conclusion on is which model they prefer and whether they are prepared to tackle child poverty.

Geoffrey Robinson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that she does not need the otiose commiserations of the Liberal party and that she should, as we do, repudiate entirely the politically motivated attacks from the official Opposition on her integrity? We on the Government Benches wholly endorse the principle of tax credits, which have brought enormous benefits to working families and low income families throughout the country. In the light of my right hon. Friend's statement on 26 May, will she consider again the possibility of a write-off and starting again so that we have a clean slate, but in no circumstances deviate from the principles that have done so much good to say many families?

Dawn Primarolo: I have not been attracted to a complete amnesty. Clearly excess payment has been made. If the claimant accepts that and is prepared to repay the money, there is no dispute. It is a question whether Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs was notified at the time of the change. It seems not to be a good deal for the taxpayer to say, No thank you. Keep that extra money. That is when the claimant thinks that they should not have had it and we know that they should not have had it. The point that is made in the ombudsman's report and the point that my hon. Friend makesit is made also by many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Houseis that in circumstances where there is a dispute or where hardship would be caused, I have said repeatedly that I want HMRC to suspend recovery while the dispute is settled. I have asked it to adopt that position, and to ensure that those in hardship are paid the additional payments that are already available in the system, and that they are made aware of the fact that those payments are available to them.

George Young: Does the Paymaster General accept that problems with tax credits have now displaced problems with the Child Support Agency as the single greatest generator of work for many Members? Does she recognise that those who man the MPs' hotline do a good job in difficult circumstances? Given the complexities of a system that Members and claimants find it difficult to comprehend, given the high percentage of mistakes that are made and given the ongoing problems with the system, does the right hon. Lady accept that many people have come to the conclusion that the present social security and tax credits system is simply unsustainable? Therefore, will she reflect on the suggestion that we should have a review of the financial interface between citizen and state to see whether we cannot come up with a simpler and clearer system than the present one?

Dawn Primarolo: I am always happy to listen to the thoughtful points that the right hon. Gentleman makes, and we had this discussion in the Adjournment debate. He suggests that there is a fundamental problem with the system, but I explained in the Adjournment debate on 7 June why that is not the case. I remind him that 20 million people are in the system and that take-up is still increasing. At the beginning of today's statement, and in all the other statements and debates, I have said that I accept the need for improvements, as hon. Members have acknowledged. I have pressed Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to look at the award notice, as well as communications, explanations given to claimants and advice on their rights, and I have instructed it to streamline procedures. However, the statistics published by Office for National Statistics do not indicate a fundamental problem in the system.

George Howarth: Does my right hon. Friend agree that any policy must meet two tests? First, it must be ambitious enough to address real problems. Tax credits, in seeking to address the problems of child poverty and making work pay, clearly pass that test. Secondly, when implementing policy, Ministers must acknowledge problems and devise strategies to deal with them. Given the way in which she has dealt with the statement and the questions put to her, my right hon. Friend has passed that test with flying colours.

Dawn Primarolo: At every point, I have been prepared to acknowledge that there are problems. Indeed, I gave a specific written answer in the context of a particular question about computer problems. Both before and since then, I have conceded that there were problems and explained their nature and extent. I explained the problems that were being caused as well as the need to address them and make changes in the system. Tax credits help the Government to reach their targets on eradicating child poverty, but of course there is substantial room for improvement. That is what the reports say, that is what I am responding to, and that is what I have kept the House informed on.

Nigel Dodds: In her statement, the Paymaster General said:
	Where there is a dispute, I have asked HMRC to consider suspending recovery of excess payments until the dispute is resolved.
	Will she make it clear that in all such disputed cases recovery proceedings will indeed be suspended? It is not just a matter of asking HMRC to consider suspending such proceedings. Can she clarify whether it is the Prime Minister's test or the Paymaster General's test that will be applied in cases of overpayment due to official error?

Dawn Primarolo: That is precisely what I am saying, and I have instructed Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs accordingly. In case the hon. Gentleman has not seen it, I am prepared to send him a copy of the statement of 26 May, which covers some of those points, and to write to him specifically about issues in Northern Ireland and the tax credits.

Robin Cook: May I invite my right hon. Friend to restore a note of balance to these exchanges by reminding the House that the Opposition trebled child poverty and the Labour party has reduced it by a quarter, largely through the tax credits system? As she looks at ways in which she can improve the operation of the system, I invite her to reflect on the cases that I and, no doubt, others have sent her in which her special requests for attention to hardship are plainly not being fulfilled by the Inland Revenue. The system is computerised, so why can we not set a decency threshold of income below which families should not fall, whatever the requirements on overpayment, so that no family suffers hardship as a result of a system that has lifted so many out of hardship?

Dawn Primarolo: As I announced on 26 May, there will be a review of the disputes procedure, the code of practice currently operated by the Inland Revenue and the way in which the system operates. All the recommendations in reports by the ombudsman, the adjudicator and the Citizens Advice Bureau will be considered in that context. Opposition parties do not want to address the success of tax credits, because that would require them to come to a decision on the fundamental question of how, in our economy, we ensure that we support families with children and eradicate child poverty.

Michael Jack: In the standard form letters that I have received in response to representations made on behalf of constituents who received overpayments, there is a presumption that constituents should have known that they were being overpaid and should be able to demonstrate that to the Revenue in an appeal. Many people struggle with that, so what steps will the Paymaster General take to introduce a ready reckoner or an easy benchmarking system to enable people to identify whether an overpayment has been made? What is she going to do to remove the misery of uncertainty from people who are waiting months, if not years, for adjudication on their representations?

Dawn Primarolo: As an ex-Treasury Minister, the right hon. Gentleman will know that the tax system uses the reasonableness test. If there was an error, it considers whether it would be reasonable to have known about it. That issue is being addressed as part of the review of the code of practice. A point that hon. Members have repeatedly made is whether it was entirely reasonable, given the information from HMRC, and its frequency and complexity, for the claimant to assume that it was correct. That is part of the reviewI touched on it at the beginning of my statement today and dealt with it in greater detail in my statement on 26 May. The right hon. Gentleman will know from his experience at the Treasury how rights are explained by the Revenue, how information is played back by HMRC and how we ensure that the claimant knows what they should be telling HMRC and that HMRC is acting on it swiftly and correctly.

George Mudie: I urge and plead with the Minister to ignore the Opposition's synthetic concern about poor people in the community. The measure has helped more individuals out of poverty in my constituency than almost anything else we have done. I underline the ombudsman's view that it was broadly successful, but suffered from administrative and computer problems. As a member of the Select Committee on Treasury, I know that the Minister is working hard on those problems. I urge her to continue her efforts to deal with admin and IT complaints, but to leave the policy alone.

Dawn Primarolo: My hon. Friend was a distinguished member of the Treasury Committee and no doubt he hopes to serve on it again. If so, I look forward to discussing this with him in Committee. On the question of the tax credits, as I have repeatedly said, there is a fundamental choice. If we are to operate the responsive system that is widely accepted both inside and outside the House as the correct way to support families with children, we must decide how that flexibility is delivered to claimants and we must do so with certainty. I do not wish to give the impression that I am not concentrating on the errors, but I am disappointed that, while millions of families have benefited from tax credits and have good things to say about them, we never hear about that from the Opposition.

Hywel Williams: The Paymaster General may recall a Westminster Hall debate that I secured three years ago on the implementation of the scheme, in which I listed a large number of problems that real people are facing in the real world in getting the correct level of tax credits. The Paymaster General was full of sympathy, but she was sanguine at the time that the system was running properly. Anyone who heard her this morning on the Today programme and this afternoon will recognise the same tone yet again. Clearly, the system has caused real problems to real people. May I quote briefly from a letter from a tax credit office? I am sure hon. Members will savour this

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I say to the hon. Gentleman that this is a very busy day? Back-Bench speeches for the main business are down to eight minutes, and we have private Bills to be presented, so if the hon. Gentleman will just ask a supplementary question, we can get on with the business.

Hywel Williams: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Given the real problems that the system has caused many families in my constituency and throughout the country, will the Paymaster General take responsibility and consider her position?

Dawn Primarolo: Quite a lot of people need to take responsibility and remember the role they played in the development of the policy. It was developed in wide consultation with the voluntary and community sector and was discussed extensively in the House. The principle of choosing between a fixed system and a flexible system was part of that debate. If the hon. Gentleman does not want a system that responds to the changing needs of families, his responsibility is to tell them how he would help them instead.

Jim Cunningham: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement, particularly the part about the hardship test. Very often, regardless of who is at fault, when families suddenly find they have a debt of 1,000 or 2,000, it can seem like the end of the world. For the record, any time I have raised an issue with my right hon. Friend regarding tax credits, she has dealt with it on a personal basis. For the Opposition to attack her integrity today is nothing short of disgusting. The Opposition mentioned the Child Support Agency. Who created that shambles, which we are still dealing with today?

Dawn Primarolo: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's comments. All Members will agree that when they have approached me with their constituency problems, I have dealt with them. It is important for me to listen to the comments made in the House and in the reports published today, reflect on what they mean for the administration of the system and take steps to deal with the problems and issues. That is precisely what I have done today in my statement and on previous occasions, and it is what I intend to continue to do.

Richard Bacon: The Paymaster General said a moment ago that she would like a greater degree of certainty. Is she saying she is minded to agree with the ombudsman in her report, where she questions whether the financial support system, which includes a degree of inbuilt financial uncertainty, can meet the needs of this particular group of families? Is the right hon. Lady saying that she will take that point on board, or will she continue to ignore it?

Dawn Primarolo: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, if this is becoming somewhat repetitive. I have explained a number of times that the system is about flexibility and responding to the changing needs of families. That is the issue that needs to be addressed. The adjudicator in the report published earlier in the week mentioned the need for more flexibility. The ombudsman recognises the need for flexibility. She and the CAB are saying that the administrative issues need to be dealt with, and I agree; that the IT problems need to be finally sorted, and I agree; and that steps should be taken, and I agree and have taken those steps. I will be taking more steps, and the House will be informed of them.

Clive Efford: Some of us are not as young as the shadow Chancellor, and we can remember the families who were trapped on benefits when the Labour Government came in. Families in London could not go to work because they were trapped on housing benefit and council tax benefit. There was no national minimum wage, and it would have cost them to go to work. Tax credits have turned that around.
	May I tell my right hon. Friend about a case that came to me? A constituent received a statement that gave no indication of the basis on which the calculations had been made. May I suggest that in future every communication contains the facts on which the calculations are based and advises people what to do if they are incorrect?

Dawn Primarolo: My hon. Friend may certainly suggest that. It is in line with the recommendations in the ombudsman's, the adjudicator's and the CAB's reports and in line with the statement that I made about how I intend to proceed from my statement on 26 May. That is one of the issues that we need to address.

John Pugh: Back in June 2003 the Paymaster General stated:
	The IT system . . . has not been working as well as expected . .  . The Inland Revenue are working urgently . . . to improve the system[Official Report, 13 June 2003; Vol. 406 1093W.]
	What did she mean by urgently, and has she secured damages from the IT contractor?

Dawn Primarolo: The hon. Gentleman will be aware, as will the House, not only from my statements, but from publicity elsewhere, of the difficulties experienced in the early months of the introduction of the tax credits and, in particular, with the IT system. He will also be aware that the Department's IT partner has changed and that the Department is working closely with its new IT partner to sort out the issues.

Edward Balls: Does my right hon. Friend agree that in moving from the inflexibilities and unfairnesses of the old benefits system to what is effectively the integration of tax and benefits through the new tax credits system, it is important that we balance the interests of taxpayers and poor families? That is why, in the original design, if incomes fall, families are fully compensated, but if their incomes go up, they must rise above the 2,500 threshold before they have to make repayments. In looking again at whether that balance has been struck as well as it could have been and whether we need to learn from experience, can my right hon. Friend confirm that she will do nothing to go backwards on tax credit integration or on reducing the unfairnesses or the inflexibilities and that she will do nothing to put at risk a reform for which she deserves huge credit, which has taken a million families out of poverty and which was opposed consistently from the beginning by the entire Opposition?

Dawn Primarolo: My hon. Friend is right. As he knows, the integration of the tax and benefits system has removed stigma and enabled people to move from unemployment into work. It has supported families, helped reduce the number of children in poverty and made sure that we have a flexible system that responds to families' needs. The choice is between a fixed, unresponsive, unfair system and a flexible system that responds to family changes. Within that equation, as he rightly identifies, we need to strike a balance on behalf of the taxpayer and define the limits of that flexibility. In the present system, all drops in income are automatically adjusted when we are notified, so that the family does not lose out. If there is any rise in income over 2,500 a yeara sum lower than that is not notifiablethe family should report an increase of income in the year. That strikes a balance of generosity on behalf of the taxpayer and recognises our partnership and the responsibility of society to support children in families, while limiting the cost of the system for the taxpayer.

Charles Walker: Labour Members do not have a monopoly on compassion, whatever they might think. Many people live on the very margins of society in Waltham Cross and Cheshunt. I know there is a problem and sincerely believe the Minister will try to resolve it. Can she assure me that none of the hard-working families in my constituency will be disadvantaged by any clawback in future?

Dawn Primarolo: That is precisely what I was trying to achieve through the reforms that I announced on 26 May, and I am gratified that the hon. Gentleman is prepared to acknowledge that.

Joan Humble: I regularly meet constituents who have benefited enormously from the tax credit system, and especially from the child care tax credit, which allows them to get off benefit and into work to advantage themselves and their families. When my right hon. Friend considers families who are in need because of decisions about their entitlement, will she examine the child care tax credit, without which many parents would not be able to stay in work?

Dawn Primarolo: I reassure my hon. Friend that the child care tax credit will be considered when we examine the need for reform on disputed excess payments. She is right that payment assistance with child care costs has liberated hundreds of thousands of families by allowing parents to choose whether to return to work. That payment did not exist until we started our tax and benefit reforms, which have provided huge improvements for parents in particular.

Peter Viggers: Is the Paymaster General aware that her complacency does not reflect the distress and hardship that so many families have experienced? Even if the incompetence were ironed out of the system, the flexibility of which she is so proud still means overpayment and clawback, which causes intense hardship for poorer families.

Dawn Primarolo: The hon. Gentleman's criticism that I have been complacent is not correct. This afternoon, I have provided a catalogue of actions that I have taken over some time, and I have continued to acknowledge that the system contains some problems. The hon. Gentleman should address the complacency of the previous Government in allowing child poverty to rise and the apparent complacency of the current Conservative party in not willing the means needed to tackle and eradicate child poverty.

BILLS PRESENTED

Immigration, Asylum and Nationality

Mr. Secretary Clarke, supported by The Prime Minister, Mr. Secretary Prescott, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Straw, Mr. Tony McNulty, Bridget Prentice and Andy Burnham, presented a Bill to make provision about immigration, asylum and nationality; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed [Bill 13].

Employment Tribunals (Representation and Assistance in Discrimination Proceedings)

Mr. Marsha Singh, supported by Peter Bottomley, Mr. Michael Clapham, Mrs. Ann Cryer, Mrs. Janet Dean, Mr. John Grogan, Mr. Fabian Hamilton, Mr. Mike Hancock, Dr. Brian Iddon, Mr. Eric Illsley, Mr. Terry Rooney and Mrs. Betty Williams, presented a Bill to make provision about representation of and  assistance to complainants indiscrimination proceedings before employment tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal; to establish and confer functions upon the Tribunal Representation and Assistance Board; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 14 October, and to be printed. [Bill 14].

Rights of Savers

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, supported by Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory, Mr. Nigel Waterson, Mr. Tim Boswell and Mr. Paul Goodman, presented a Bill to make provision about the rights and choices of savers in relation to pensions and pension schemes, annuities and savings; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 28 October, and to be printed. [Bill 15].

Armed Forces (Parliamentary Approval for Participation in Armed Conflict)

Clare Short, supported by Dr. Tony Wright, Mr. William Hague, Sir Menzies Campbell, Mr. Kenneth Clarke, Mr. Alex Salmond, Mr. Douglas Hogg, Mr. Neil Gerrard, Mr. Gordon Prentice, Kelvin Hopkins, Mr. Michael Moore and Adam Price, presented a Bill to require parliamentary approval for the participation of Her Majesty's armed forces in armed conflict and for a declaration of war; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 21 October, and to be printed. [Bill 16].

Climate Change and Sustainable Energy

Mr. Mark Lazarowicz, supported by Dr. Alan Whitehead, Mr. Andrew Smith, Mr. Peter Ainsworth, Mr. Frank Doran, Andrew Stunell, Dr. Desmond Turner, Mr. Mike Weir, Joan Walley, Alan Simpson, Meg Hillier and Colin Challen, presented a Bill to make provision about the reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases, the alleviation of fuel poverty, the promotion of microgeneration and the introduction of a renewable heat obligation; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 11 November, and to be printed. [Bill 17].

Criminal Law (Amendment) (Protection of Property)

Miss Anne McIntosh, supported by David Davis, Patrick Mercer, Mr. Dominic Grieve, Mr. Frank Field, Mr. Mike Hancock, Lady Hermon, Kate Hoey, Dr. Richard Taylor, Mr. Mark Prisk, Chris Grayling and Mr. Roger Gale, presented a Bill to amend section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 and section 3 of the Criminal Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 in relation to the use of force in the prevention of crime or in the defence of persons or property: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 2 December, and to be printed. [Bill 18].

International Development (Reporting and Transparency)

Mr. Tom Clarke, supported by Ann McKechin, Mr. Nicholas Brown, John Barrett, Angela Browning, Mr. Alex Salmond, Dan Norris, Ed Balls, Lady Hermon, Dr. Hywel Francis, John Bercow and Keith Vaz, presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State to report annually on total expenditure on international development assistance as a proportion of gross national income, and in particular on progress towards the target for expenditure on official development assistance to constitute 0.7 per cent. of gross national income; to require such reports to contain information about expenditure by country, about the proportion of expenditure in low income countries and about the effectiveness of expenditure in each country; to make provision about the transparency of international development assistance; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 20 January, and to be printed. [Bill 19].

Emergency Workers (Protection)

Mr. Alan Williams, supported by Derek Conway, Mrs. Ann Cryer, Mr. Andrew Dismore, Clive Efford, Nia Griffith, Mr. David Heath, Mr. Michael Mates, Ms Emily Thornberry, Jon Trickett, Mrs. Betty Williams and Richard Younger-Ross, presented a Bill to make it an offence to assault or impede persons who provide emergency services; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 24 February, and to be printed.[Bill 20].

Income Tax (Earnings Exemption for Persons Living in Poverty)

Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, supported by Mr. John Whittingdale, Mr. Iain Duncan-Smith, Mr. Edward Leigh, Mr. Nick Herbert, Mr. William Hague, Mr. Peter Atkinson, Mr. Peter Ainsworth, Andrew Selous, Peter Luff, Sir George Young and Mr. David Curry, presented a Bill to provide that income tax is not chargeable on the earnings of persons living in poverty: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 14 October, and to be printed. [Bill 21].

Management of Energy in Buildings

Dr. Alan Whitehead, supported by Mark Lazarowicz, Paddy Tipping, Mr. John Denham, Mr. Peter Ainsworth, Andrew Stunell, Mr. Andrew Robathan, Joan Ruddock, Colin Challen, Annette Brooke, Dr. Phyllis Starkey and Martin Salter, presented a Bill to make provision about the promotion of renewable and sustainable energy, energy efficiency in buildings and the alleviation of fuel poverty; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 11 November, and to be printed. [Bill 22].

Children's Food

Mary Creagh, supported by David Taylor, Helen Goodman, Mark Durkan, Ms Emily Thornberry, Mr. Andy Reed, Mr. Paul Burstow, Vera Baird, Ms Barbara Keeley, Tom Levitt, Mr. Barry Sheerman and Mr. Robert Walter, presented a Bill to make provision about the marketing, sale and provision of food to and for children; to make provision for education and the dissemination of information about children's diet, nutrition and health; to place certain duties on the Food Standards Agency; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 28 October, and to be printed. [Bill 23].

Road Safety and Parking

Ms Sally Keeble, supported by Miss Anne Begg, Mrs. Louise Ellman, Mr. Tom Clarke, Margaret Moran, Dr. Brian Iddon, Mr. David Kidney, Andrew Miller, Bob Russell, Peter Bottomley, Mr. Brian Binley and Andrew Selous, presented a Bill to make it an offence to cause death or serious injury by careless driving; to make further provision about badges for display on motor vehicles used by disabled persons; to make provision about the safety of school transport; and for connected purposes; and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 21 October, and to be printed. [Bill 24].

Crime Prevention and the Built Environment

Mr. Nigel Evans, supported by David Davis, Mrs. Caroline Spelman, Mr. Robert Syms, Mr. Tobias Ellwood, Mr. Simon Burns, Mrs. Cheryl Gillan, Patrick Mercer, Miss Julie Kirkbride, Mr. Eric Pickles, Mr. James Paice and Richard Ottaway, presented a Bill to make provision about crime prevention and the built environment: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 2 December, and to be printed. [Bill 25].

Telecommunications Masts (Planning Control)

Mr. David Curry, supported by Sir George Young, Alan Simpson, Mr. David S. Borrow, Mr. James Gray, Adam Afriyie, Mr. Gary Streeter, Derek Wyatt, Andrew Stunell, Mr. Phil Willis, Mr. Mark Oaten and John Bercow, presented a Bill to amend the law relating to planning in connection with telecommunications masts and associated apparatus; to amend the electronic communications code in connection with telecommunications masts and associated apparatus and make further provision about that code; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 24 February, and to be printed. [Bill 26].

Occasional Sales

Mr. John Whittingdale, supported by Janet Anderson, Dr. Vincent Cable, Peter Luff, Chris Bryant, Mr. Don Foster, Mr. Hugo Swire, Jim Dowd, Pete Wishart, Mr. Nigel Evans, Lembit pik and Peter Bottomley, on behalf of Mr. John Whittingdale, presented a Bill to make provision about occasional sales: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 14 October, and to be printed. [Bill 27].

Regulation of Laser Eye Surgery

Frank Cook, supported by Dr. Ian Gibson, Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody, Dr. Richard Taylor, Mr. Alan Williams, Sir George Young, John McDonnell, Roger Berry, Peter Bottomley, Kelvin Hopkins, Mr. Mike Hancock and Lynne Jones, presented a Bill to regulate laser eye surgery: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 21 October, and to be printed. [Bill 28].

European Communities Act 1972 (Disapplication)

Mr. Owen Paterson, supported by Mr. William Cash, Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory, Mr. Frank Field, Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody, Nick Harvey, Mr. Edward Leigh, Mr. Desmond Swayne, Mr. Richard Shepherd, Angela Watkinson, Mrs. Theresa Villiers and Mr. Robert Goodwill, presented a Bill to provide that Community treaties, Community instruments and Community obligations shall only be binding in legal proceedings in the United Kingdom insofar as they do not conflict with a subsequent, expressly inconsistent enactment of the Parliament of the United Kingdom: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read the Second time on Friday 14 October, and to be printed. [Bill 29].

Breast Cancer

Mr. Shailesh Vara, supported by Mr. Stephen Dorrell, Dr. Ian Gibson, Bob Russell, Angela Browning, Miss Julie Kirkbride, Mr. Roger Gale, Vera Baird, Mrs. Ann Cryer, Dr. Doug Naysmith, Annette Brooke and Dr. Richard Taylor, presented a Bill to make provision about the detection and treatment of breast cancer: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 20 January, and to be printed. [Bill 30].

Humber Bridge

Shona McIsaac, supported by Mr. Austin Mitchell, David Davis, Ms Diana R. Johnson, Mr. Greg Knight, Mr. Graham Stuart, Edward Miliband, Mr. Phil Willis, Mr. John Grogan and Mr. Edward Leigh, presented a Bill to amend the Humber Bridge Act 1959; to require the Secretary of State to give directions to certain members of the Humber Bridge Board in relation to healthcare; to require the Secretary of State to review the desirability of facilitating journeys across the Humber Bridge in relation to healthcare; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 20 January, and to be printed. [Bill 31].

Professional Football (Supporter Involvement)

Mr. John Grogan, supported by Tony Lloyd, Joan Walley, Nick Harvey, John Mann, Shona McIsaac, Mr. Mike Hall, Dr. Alan Whitehead, Stephen Hesford, Jon Trickett, Mr. Clive Betts and Mr. Marsha Singh, presented a Bill to make provision about supporter involvement in professional football clubs; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 24 February, and to be printed. [Bill 32].

Prohibition of Abortion (England and Wales)

Mr. Laurence Robertson, supported by Mr David Amess, Mr. Julian Brazier and Sir Nicholas Winterton, presented a Bill to prohibit the aborting of foetuses in England and Wales unless the mother's life is at risk, or where conception has been caused by rape; to make it an imprisonable offence for anyone to carry out an abortion other than in those circumstances; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 21 October, and to be printed. [Bill 33].

Opposition Day
	  
	[2nd Allotted Day]

Special Schools and Special Educational Needs

Mr. Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

David Cameron: I beg to move,
	That this House believes that special schools play a vital role in meeting the needs of children with learning difficulties, and that parents should have more choice between special and mainstream schools; further believes that the Government should hold a proper review of the provision of special educational needs to cover concerns about the statementing process, the continued closure of special schools, concerns about bias in the law and central government pressure to pursue policies of inclusion when they are not always appropriate; and calls for a moratorium on special school closures until such a review has been published and properly debated.
	How we provide education and opportunity for those with complex needs is incredibly important. Those children include some of the most disadvantaged in the country and their families often face enormous stresses and strains in trying to bring them up and in getting what they need.
	There is much common ground on both sides of the House about what we should be trying to do. Last week, the Minister for Children and Families, who is not present today, said:
	We need to ensure that the system can deliver as easily and accessibly as possible what individual parents want.[Official Report, 16 June 2005; Vol. 435, c. 381.]
	I agree with that point, but it is not actually happening.
	My argument is not with what the Government say about that issue, but with what they do and with what they are allowing to happen up and down this country: special schools are closing, mainstream schools are not coping and statementing has become incredibly bureaucratic and far too much of a battle for all concerned. Inclusion has gone too far and we badly need to stop, think and get this right.
	There is concern on both sides of the House on the issue. At last week's Education and Skills questions, the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Mudie) warned that parents' wishes are being completely ignored, saying:
	The private company that a past Secretary of State put in to run education is closing the special school, threatening governors and taking no notice of parents.[Official Report, 16 June 2005; Vol. 435, c. 378.]
	How much more serious could the situation be? I am sure that we will hear more concerns today about what is happening on the ground.
	The Conservative approach is clear. We are not saying that inclusion is wrongfor many children, it is right and works welland we are not saying that the concept of statements is wrong. We need a system that recognises and meets needs. However, the Government must recognise three things. First, the inclusion agenda has gone too far. A movement that was about redressing a balance is going beyond achieving that and is now being applied in many cases where it harms rather than helps. Secondly, the statementing system now has serious problems resulting in many children not getting the education and services that they need. Thirdly, as a result, we believe that the whole sector needs to be fundamentally reviewed.
	The Government's approach to these issues is simply inadequate and the audit of special schools that is under way is typical of that approach. The Labour election manifesto Britain forward, not backas always, no verbs, but catchy titlesaid:
	We will undertake an audit of special school provision to give better comparative information to local authorities, head teachers and school governors as they plan future . . . provision.

Nicholas Winterton: My hon. Friend will know that I entirely endorse the case that he is presenting. Will he give a categorical assurance that no further special schools will close as far as the Conservative and Unionist party is concerned, and that there will be a proper audit of the resources given to them? The Park Lane special school in my constituency, which is 100 per cent. supported by local people and by parents, is being deprived of the resources that it needs to provide the level of education that these very vulnerable young people require.

David Cameron: As I will explain, our policy is for a moratorium on the closure of special schools because we believe that the policy is biased, as is the guidance, and that is why so many schools are threatened with closure.

Michael Foster: Manor Park special school in my constituency is about to be closed and the pupils dispersed to Rose Hill and Thornton House special schools. Would the hon. Gentleman describe that as the closure of a special school or as a reconfiguration of the system? In trying to be helpful to himI know that he wants to win friends and influence people over the next few monthsI should point out that Worcestershire local education authority is Conservative-controlled.

David Cameron: If one has a moratorium, so that one can stop and think and get the Government policy right, then one can stop the closures. The reason why so many authorities are considering closing schools is because of the guidance that goes out from the Government, which I have here. It is called Inclusive Schoolingthe title is a bit of a giveawayand says on the front page that it must not be ignored. On page 9, it says:
	The starting point is always that children who have statements will receive mainstream education.
	That is the guidance and that is why we have these problems.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Cameron: Hang on; let me go on about Worcestershire for a moment. I have a list of cases from Worcestershire. Here is one:
	John, aged 6, has moderate learning difficulties. He spends most of the school day sat at a desk outside the classroom so he doesn't upset or distract the other children. Mum is now pushing for John to attend a special school for moderate learning difficulty children.
	Yet it is moderate learning difficulty schools that are being closed and that the Government's audit does not cover.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Cameron: Right, who is next?

David Drew: The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this important issue, but can he quote the educational research that proves his argument that moderate learning difficulty children do better if they are segregated in special schools?

David Cameron: There is plenty of evidence that special schools lead to very good outcomes. The hon. Gentleman should do what I did in his county of Gloucestershireget himself to the Alderman Knight school in Tewkesbury. That is a moderate learning disability school that does a fantastic job for the parents and children, with real intimacy and small classrooms, and it is much valued. A Labour and Liberal Democrat-controlled council was going to close it but, because the Conservatives won in May, it will be saved.

Andrew Miller: rose

David Cameron: Right, let us try Cheshire.

Andrew Miller: I want to follow up the point made by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton). Will the hon. Gentleman explain why there is a massive underspend in the education budget in Cheshire, with some 3.8 million unspent by his party, which is in control?

David Cameron: We are discussing special schools. If there is an underspend, clearly the council will have more money available to spend on special needs. I hope that it will spend it carefully[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman asked the question, so he might as well wait for the answer. It would probably spend it better if the Government had a less biased law and did not put out biased guidance.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Cameron: We have a very limited time for the debate, so I am going to make some progress.

Maria Eagle: rose

David Cameron: I have to give way to the hon. Lady.

Maria Eagle: The hon. Gentleman refers to less biased law. Is he saying that the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001, which applies the civil rights in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 to education, is biased law that he does not approve of?

David Cameron: That is exactly what I am about to explain. In my view, the 2001 Act does not recognise balance. True balance is about giving parents a choice, with full information, between special schools and mainstream schools. If the hon. Lady is patient, she will find out about it shortly, when I set it out in great detail.
	The Government's audit is very limited, even though they told us in their manifesto that it would be a general audit. The Minister for Children and Families told us last week that
	it is a specific audit . . . for the relatively small number of children who have high and complicated needs.[Official Report, 16 June 2005; Vol. 435, c. 379.]
	Why did not they say that in their manifesto? They gave a completely false impression. The audit covers only those schools that deal with the most severe needs, yet it is schools for those with moderate learning difficulties that are closing. The Government's approach is in danger of being both flawed and complacent. It is the anniversary of Nelson's death, and my worry is that the Government are putting the telescope up to their blind eye and saying, We see no problems; we see no closures. They have to focus on this issue.
	I want to do three things: set out the evidence that inclusion has gone too far, explain why that has happenedI shall come on to the bias in the lawand suggest what the Government should do about it.

Tom Levitt: The hon. Gentleman will no doubt wish to point out to the House that, since Labour came into power, around 13 special schools a year have indeed been closed. Would he also like to put on the record that, during the last 10 years of the Conservative Government, some 27 special schools a year were closed? He wants local people to make local decisions on special education, but is not a moratorium on closure the antithesis of that?

David Cameron: This is rather sad. I am making a speech about the futureabout getting it right for the most needy children in our country. The hon. Gentleman is right. Ninety schools have closed since this Government came to power. That is wrong and regrettable, and the fact that we have lost 6,000 places is a problem. I am going to make some suggestions about what should be done about it and if he is patient he will hear them.
	There is an overt closure programme, with schools threatened explicitly by the authorities. The Government cannot deny that because the Minister for Children and Families said last week that, if the closures were stopped, as we suggest, there would be chaos and gridlock. We maintain that the closure of these centres of excellence is causing the chaos and that is what the Government need to learn.
	There is also closure by slow strangulation, whereby parents are not told about the special schools, fewer children are sent to them, and head teachers are told, Your rolls are falling and your future's uncertain. Many Members, from Gloucestershire and elsewhere, will be able to tell us about such cases.
	The experience of mainstream schools adds to the mounting evidence that inclusion is being taken too far. Many are not coping with the new approach. As the Disability Rights Commission put it:
	Many parents of disabled children have little confidence that mainstream schools will provide a safe environment where their children can reach their true potential.
	We should listen to that.

Justine Greening: I fully endorse what my hon. Friend is saying about the policy of inclusion, which is forcing parents to put their children into mainstream schools. In my area, special needs schools have falling rolls. That places local councils in an impossible position if they wish to continue providing special needs access in the long term as well as the short term. [Interruption.]

David Cameron: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I shall tell hon. Members who are shouting, Who controls the council?, what councils have to plough through. They have to read Removing Barriers to Achievementthe Government strategy that is forcing inclusion on themand the report of the special schools working group, which is doing the same. That is why I am asking the Government for a proper audit and a proper review.

Angela Smith: In a previous life, I was a council cabinet member for education in Sheffield, where we embarked on a programme of consolidation and rebuilding for good special schools. We stopped the closure of three schools because we listened to the parents and the professionals and realised that those schools had a longer life. Will the hon. Gentleman recommend that Leeds, a Tory authority, does the same?

David Cameron: I have made my position clear. If there is a moratorium, all the closures will stop and there will be time to think again in the sensible way that the hon. Lady describes. I believe that she said in Question Time last Thursday that the problem in many areas is that local authorities do not listen to the views of special needs teachers in special schools who know the problems so well. I agree with her, which is why I made the point that hon. Members of all parties are concerned about how the law is working and what is happening on the ground.

Judy Mallaber: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Cameron: I am keen to give others time to speak in the debate, so I shall make progress.
	When left in mainstream schools, where they are often not dealt with properly, children with special needs can become disruptive. That is not in the interests of the student with special needs, the rest of the class, the teacher or the school. In many cases, parents recognise that that form of inclusion is not working and they vote with their feet. In 2003, more than 5,000 children with statements transferred from mainstream schools to special schools, while only 1,200 went in the other direction.
	As hon. Members know, in some cases when children stay in mainstream schools, the schools cannot cope and disaster ensues. One can see that in the figures for exclusions. Two thirds of all exclusions involve students with special needs. One in five people of school age affected by autism is expelled from school and never returns. Those are individual tragedies.
	Our view that inclusion has gone too far has received significant support from the words of Lady Warnock. The second Warnock report is a remarkable document. Anybody who is interested in the subject should read it. It is a stunning recantation of the first Warnock report, which began the inclusion campaign. In my view, Lady Warnock deserves credit for candour. She refers to the policy of inclusion as the most disastrous legacy of her original report. She says:
	the failure to distinguish between various kinds of need has been disastrous for many children.
	The report could not be clearer about current Government policy. It says that
	there is increasing evidence that the ideal of inclusion, if this means that all but those with the most severe disabilities will be in mainstream schools, is not working.
	The Government simply cannot ignore such a significant report by so respected a figure. It is no good saying, But that is not our policyI will go on to show that that is precisely the Government's policy. Baroness Warnock understands exactly what the Government's policy is and she says that it is wrong.

Edward Davey: Does not Baroness Warnock also say that some of the special schools are inadequate and need to be reorganised? Does the hon. Gentleman support special schools reorganisation when it is sensible?

David Cameron: Yes, absolutely. Baroness Warnock has some interesting things to say. My point is that we should have a moratorium to get the Government policy right. Until we get rid of the document entitled, Inclusive Schooling, we will not get anywhere. Once the policy is right, there is much more that we can do. In my constituency, there is a combined special school and mainstream school. Springfield school and Madley Brook school are next door to each other. They form two horseshoes, with the special school inside the mainstream school. That is a model for others to follow. However, we must get the law and the guidance right first.

Several hon. Members: rose

David Cameron: I want to make progress because the debate is time limited.
	I want to consider why we are in the current position and why I believe that it will continue. My next point directly answers the question that the Under-Secretary asked earlier. There is a bias in the law on special educational needs as it stands. The 2001 Act states that, if a statement is maintained, a child must be educated in a mainstream school unless that is incompatible with the wishes of his parent or the provision of efficient education for other children. However, in many cases parents are not told about the existence of special schools. That is not balance. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary should listen instead of chuntering. Balance means offering parents the choice of a place in either a mainstream or a special school and providing plenty of information and help to make that choice. The Government should conduct a review.
	The guidance, as well as the law, is biased. I have referred to Inclusive Schooling, but the same goes for the document that the Minister for Children and Families mentioned last Thursday, Removing the Barriers to Achievement. The strategy states:
	The proportion of children educated in special schools should fall over time.
	That is the Government's approach. The guidance goes on to stress that only a
	small number of children . . . have severe and complex needs that will continue to require special provision.
	Perhaps the Minister will claim that I am somehow misinterpreting the guidance, but it is not only my view. In her new report, Mary Warnock states:
	Government thinking is set on immovable tracks. Special schools are a place of last resort, only, we are told, for children with severe and complex disabilities. But for other children we must keep them out of special schools by hook or by crook to educate them in mainstream schools.
	The Government need to be aware of what is happening. Local authorities are interpreting Government policy in a particular way because special schools are expensive. Class sizes are smallindeed, it is that sense of intimacy that often enables them to get so much done. The equipment all costs money. An alliance is therefore being formed between those who favour inclusion on ideological grounds and those who want to achieve it on financial grounds. If Ministers do not realise that that is happening, they are not in touch with what is going on on the ground.

Eleanor Laing: Will my hon. Friend give way?

David Cameron: I shall not give way again. [Interruption.] I have been tempted into giving way.

Eleanor Laing: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way so graciously. On the point that he has just made and the interpretation of Lady Warnock's report, does he agree that special schools are not only schools for the pupils who happen to be in them at any particular time, but centres of excellence that help teachers in mainstream schools who need to learn about special education for those with mild learning difficulties who can benefit from inclusion? We must not lose those centres of excellence.

David Cameron: I suspect that my hon. Friend would expect me to say that I agreed with her anyway, but I genuinely agree with her. Baroness Warnock says that Ministers are partly responsible for the rather condescending view that people have of special schools. My hon. Friend is right that we should view them as centres of excellence.
	I want to be positive. We need a full audit of special schools, which must cover every special school in every part of the country and take account of the views of parents, which are often ignored. It must examine the law, which restricts choice and inculcates a bias against special schools. At least until the audit is completed, published and discussed, there should be a moratorium on the closure of special schools.

Maria Eagle: The hon. Gentleman has been generous in giving way, for which I am grateful. Is he in favour of repealing the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001?

David Cameron: No. I have said that it should be reviewed to provide balance. I shall not redraft the Act at the Dispatch Box, but the minimum for which it should provide is giving parents of special needs children a choice between a mainstream or a special school, and the support and information that they need. That is balance.

Edward Davey: They do get a choice.

David Cameron: The hon. Gentleman should examine the law and the way in which it is drafted, talk to parents who have not been told about special schools and read the guidance. He will then realise that I am right and he is wrong.

John Bercow: Does my hon. Friend accept that part of the problem is that the Government want it both ways? They want to close special schools and deny mainstream education the necessary resources to make a success of integration. Does my hon. Friend know that a primary school in my constituency faces the indignity of pupils with special needs having to use the school staff room from which the staff are turfed out, while the Government claim that provision is reasonable. Is not there a mismatch between the definition of reasonable by the Department for Education and Skills and that which would appear sensible to most reasonable people?

David Cameron: My hon. Friend puts it extremely well. I do not believe that the Government are acting with malice aforethought. They do not follow the policy because they do not care. They simply have not thought it through. When they examine the policy carefully, they will find that many children with special needs are excluded from school and stuck in pupil referral units. I have examples of pupils who are meant to be there for only a few weeks yet end up there for a few months because of the bias against special schools.
	At the heart of this debate are the children whom none of us want to see left behind. I have criticisms of the Government, and I have made them, but I have also made constructive suggestions, and I want us to achieve consensus where we can. It does not matter who does these things, it just matters that they get done. There is a simple point at issue: different children have different needs. Trying to meet them all in the same way in the same class in the same school can be, and all too often has been, a cruel deception for many children. Mary Warnock has seen the light and admitted that she got it wrong.
	We are asking the Government to think again. These are people's children, not guinea pigs in some giant social experiment. Real inclusion involves understanding that different needs require different, and often special, treatment. The closure of special schools must be stopped while the Government think again. I would say to any Member from any party who shares this view, and who knows that real compassion means understanding our differences, should join us in the Lobby and vote for our motion today.

Jacqui Smith: I beg to move, To leave out from difficulties to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
	acknowledges that parents may want mainstream or special schools for their children and notes that under the current statutory framework they have the right to express a preference for either; welcomes the Government's commitment to improving the range and quality of provision for children with special educational needs through its special educational needs strategy, Removing Barriers to Achievement, which followed wide consultation and a separate review of the role of special schools; rejects the call for further reviews and a moratorium on closures of special schools, since this would stifle reorganisation of local provision to meet changing patterns of need and halt the development of effective collaboration between mainstream and special schools; welcomes the Government's audit of provision for low incidence needs since it will contribute to more effective planning; and welcomes its determination to ensure that all children with SEN are able to realise their potential, wherever they are taught..
	I very much welcome the interest of the Opposition in special educational needs and the future of special schools. I also welcome the emphasis that the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has placed on the perspective of parents. Many of us will bring our experiences as parents to the debate; some of us will even bring our experience of state education. Despite such a gap in the hon. Gentleman's experience, however, he is doing a reasonable job. He is also doing a reasonable job of promoting his leadership ambitions, and I wish him well in that regard. In fact, I think that the Conservatives would be wise to go for a leader from the progressive left of their party.
	I shall turn to the important issues of the debate. There is a fundamental flaw in the hon. Gentleman's approach to this matter. I am disappointed with what appears to be an ongoing fixation with buildings and institutions. Furthermore, the Opposition are expending all their energy on criticising a policy that simply does not exist. Contrary to the impression that the Conservatives would like to give, the Government do not have a policy of closing special schools.

Nadine Dorries: I should like to bring the debate back down to the real level. Jack McMurray is a beautiful little eight-year-old boy in my constituency, and he has autism. As a result of inclusion, he is in fact excluded from school. This little boy, who needs education the most, has none. Will the Minister agree to meet me to discuss Jack's case, because his parents are on the edge of despair?

Jacqui Smith: My concern is for little boys such as Jack, and for children with special needs, and others, throughout the whole country. Of course, if it would be helpful to discuss these issues, my ministerial colleagues and I would be more than willing to meet with Members from either side of the House.

Andrew Miller: While my right hon. Friend is looking at what is going on up and down the country, will she take a special look at Cheshire, where there is a massive underspend in the area of expenditure that we are discussing, as well as a threat of an 8 million underspend in the Sure Start budget? This is outrageous. We have allocated money, and it is vital that, when it has been allocated, the Conservative council should not be allowed to divert it to other projects. It must be spent in these important areas.

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Government are increasing investment in schools, and it is the responsibility of local authorities to ensure that that investment gets to where it will make a difference for our pupils and schools.

Sadiq Khan: As we are talking about terrible Tory councils, does my right hon. Friend agree with certain observations in yesterday's Evening Standard? She might be aware that two Members of this House are also councillors in the London borough of Wandsworth: the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) and I. The Evening Standard said that the   use by the Conservative council of the term reorganisation was a
	weasel phrase to preserve its flagship status as a low-rate Tory borough.
	Does my right hon. Friend agree?

Jacqui Smith: I shall touch on that issue in a moment. My hon. Friend has identified a fundamental problem inthe Conservatives' approach, which argues for decentralisation of decision making, but for centralisation when those decisions are not the ones that they want.

Tom Levitt: My right hon. Friend will know, from when we served on the Special Educational Needs and Disability Bill together, that I passionately believe that special schools have a place, especially for those children who are best served in those schools. There are such categories of children. Is not the key to all this, however, to get the statement right in the first place, and to agree a policy whereby the right education can be provided and properly resourced for that individual child? Parents with a child with special needs want support, which they often get from parent partnerships, to help them to reach the best decision for their child, who will, after all, have to live in an inclusive world after they leave school

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That was a reasonably long intervention, and interventions generally are getting too long. The House would do well to remember that interventions take time out of the debate, making it more difficult for Members who are seeking to catch my eye to contribute this afternoon.

Jacqui Smith: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend makes a crucial point about the importance of parents and of an individual's needs in the system, and I shall expand on that in a moment. I should now like to make a little progress.
	I disagree with the Opposition, in that I do not believe that we should focus on buildings and institutions. It would be more useful to set down the guiding principles of the system, then design and reform it to meet those principles, rather than making the maintenance of the status quo the guiding principle, which is the Conservativein all senses of the wordapproach. I do not believe that that will enable us to deliver for the needs of individual children. Our focus is on meeting the needs of all children, on extending parental choice, and on securing the highest possible standards and the best possible outcomes for children, young people and families.
	Those are ambitious goals, but rightly so. The task of achieving them is changing over time, as new challenges arise. For example, we have seen a significant increase in the number of children identified with autistic spectrum disorders over the past few years, as our health system becomes better at supporting very young children and babies. We are also seeing increasing numbers of children with profound and complex impairments and with learning difficulties. Because we are faced with that wide and evolving range of needs, it is important that we have a flexible range of provision that is able to meet those needs. That is what we are seeking to achieve.

Judy Mallaber: Has my right hon. Friend read the response of the National Autistic Society to Baroness Warnock's report? Its conclusion is that we should not abandon the policy of inclusion, but that it needs training and resources to make it work. Local authorities such as Derbyshire are putting extra resources into specialist autism centres as well as into enhanced units in mainstream schools, which represents the way forward to allow parents the necessary choice.

Jacqui Smith: I strongly agree with my hon. Friend, and with the National Autistic Society. Previous work by the society and by the all-party group on autism has shown that about 80 per cent. of parents with autistic children in mainstream education felt that they were getting very good support. My hon. Friend has made precisely the point that I wanted to make, which is that the quality of education is dependent on the investment and resources that are put into the schools.

Several hon. Members: rose

Jacqui Smith: If it is okay with hon. Members, I should like to make a little more progress, as there is a time restriction on Back-Bench speeches.
	Parental views on where a child should be educated and the support that they should receive are extremely important. We must remember that it was not that long ago that many parents were denied that choice by a system that prevented many children with special educational needs from being educated in a mainstream school and joining other children in that way. That is why we introduced the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001. Contrary to the claims made by the Opposition, that Act removed barriers that were placed in the way of parents who wanted their children to attend mainstream schools but were denied the opportunity.

Andrew Gwynne: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not just a question of buildings; it is a question of the support that we offer to families and parents. Is my hon. Friend not amazed that the Conservatives have made no mention of, for example, the education maintenance allowance, from which thousands of children with special educational needs are benefiting?

Jacqui Smith: As my hon. Friend implies, Conservative Members are to an extent in a state of flux. A policy response that is solely about reviews fails to recognise the real needs of our children.

Eleanor Laing: Does the Minister agree that even if the present system of statementing is well intentioned, it does not work in practice? Can she tell us how many children to whom statements have been issued when it has been accepted that they need a certain level of support do not receive it in practice? In practice, parental choice and statementing do not work.

Jacqui Smith: Of course we need a process that enables us to determine where resources should be allocated to reach the children with the most severe special needs. That is the function of statements. We also needand havea robust system of appeals. In the most recent year the number of appeals to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal fell slightly, but it is important that such appeals are possible. I agree that we need to make improvements to deal with the bureaucracy surrounding statements, and we shall do so.

John Bercow: A few moments ago the right hon. Lady was airily dismissive of buildings, but the facilities in buildings are of the essence. Does she accept that, as a matter of principle, it is simply wrong that, for example, girls with physical disabilities should have to share loos with male staff? That is currently happening in a mainstream school in my constituency.

Jacqui Smith: I am never dismissive, airily or otherwise, of points made by the hon. Gentleman. I do consider that situation unacceptable. The Government's schools access initiative, which includes investment of 300 million over the next three years, is making a crucial contribution to ensuring that mainstream schools really are accessible. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman supports that extra investment.
	I was talking about parents. We must ensure that an appropriate balance is struck. When any parent of a child with special needs states a preference for a special school, there is no presumption of inclusion in a mainstream school. Instead, the local authority must recommend the placement on the basis of the usual criteria: the child's needs, the needs of other children and the issue of resources.
	I agree with the hon. Member for Witney: parents should, by regulation, be given information about mainstream and special schools when a statement is being considered. Through the 2001 Act, we have ensured further support for parents with the requirement that every local authority must have a parent partnership service. What parents really want is an assurance that their children can achieve their full potential, and are supported by well trained staff with the resources that they need to make the most of the opportunities that a school and curriculum can offer. That does not come about by accident. It does not exist only in special schools or in mainstream schools. It comes about because a Government are willing to invest in capacity to ensure that it happens.

Annette Brooke: What is the Minister's response to the survey by Her Majesty's inspectorate mentioned in the annual Ofsted report? It found that in cases of inclusion a significant number of children with special educational needs were not achieving all that they could.

Jacqui Smith: The timing of the hon. Lady's intervention is lucky, as I am coming to precisely that point. She is right: the proof of the system, the evidence of success, must lie in improving outcomes and raising attainment for children with special educational needs. We have done well in that regard. The Ofsted report shows that the proportion of pupils with special educational needs who are judged to be making good progress in mainstream primary and secondary schools has grown significantly in recent yearsfrom 54 per cent. to 73 per cent. in primary schools between 2000 and 2003, and from 43 per cent. to 71 per cent. in secondary schools over the same period. We know that there has been progress, but we also know that there is more to be made.

Nick Hurd: Does the Minister acknowledge the concern expressed by Conservative Members earlier about the lack of training available to teachers in mainstream schools? Grangewood school in my constituency has set itself up, on its own initiative, as a centre of excellence offering training to all schools in the borough of Hillingdon. It has been swamped with demand. The headmaster says that it has only been able to scratch the surface of that demand, while at the same time having to deal with the real challenge of a falling roll as a result of the government's policy. Should we not be supporting such centres of excellence rather than undermining them?

Jacqui Smith: Yes, we should, and I shall explain how we are doing so.
	As I have said, we are making progress but we need to make more. That is why we are working, through the national strategies and through our response to the Tomlinson report, to encourage schools to personalise the curriculum. It must be accessible to all children, so that it provides all children with the best possible learning. That is why we are investing in our children, and not simply through the additional 1,300 per pupil that will have been invested between 1997 and 200708. This year there has been a 7.8 per cent. increase in local authority spending on special needs. That is whyhere I come to the point made by the hon. Gentlemanwe need to build capacity in the teaching and education work force.
	We recently commissioned the Teacher Training Agency to produce a 1.1 million package of work to improve quality and choice in special educational needs training for teachers. We are working to provide a more effective continuous professional development and career path for teachers and special educational needs co-ordinators, and for heads. There are already many good, indeed inspirational, teachers working in the special needs field, and we need to ensure that their expertise feeds through to others. We have made an important start by providing 135 advanced-skills teachers who specialise in special educational needs to advise and support less experienced colleagues, 50 of whom are based in special schools.

Roger Williams: Many of us acknowledge the increased investment in special needs, but according to the head teacher of a special school in my constituencyPenmaes schoolbecause of the Tory Government's lack of investment in training special needs teachers and other specialists such as therapists, it is very difficult to secure the skills and deliver on statements.

Jacqui Smith: The hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, be pleased to learn that there has been an increase of nearly 35 per cent. in the number of speech and language therapists since 1997. Even more significant, the number of training places has increased by the same amount.

Jeff Ennis: I thank the Minister for finally giving way to me. Is she aware of a report by Committee D of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body, on which I serve? The report, which was published this week, deals with special educational needs provision throughout the British Isles, including the Republic of Ireland. May I ask the Minister to study it in detail? It contains excellent recommendations, particularly on special educational needs provision for children with autism. I think that she would find it useful in the context of this debate.

Jacqui Smith: I assure my hon. Friend that I will look in detail at that matter and that we will respond to that report. From my preliminary reading of it, it contains some important points about how the health and education sectors work together to ensure provision for autistic children. I am sure that he will welcome the focus on autism in the national service framework for children as a particular example of how we can achieve more.
	I promised to respond to hon. Members about how we are investing in schools themselves, including special schools. We have made it clear that special schools continue to have a vital role in catering for children with the most complex needs and in working more closely with mainstream schools to share their expertise. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing), who is not in her place at the moment, made an important point in that regard. Some in the debate want to characterise special schools and mainstream schools as being poles apartas two ends of the spectrum. In fact, they should be two sides of the same coin, working in partnership. Beaumont Hill school and technology college in Darlington provides outreach services to mainstream schools for children with autistic spectrum disorders and severe learning difficulties, and has an advanced skills teacher working with other schools across the authority, making provision for children with behavioural, social and emotional difficulties, supporting children and providing a local alternative for mainstream schools.

David Cameron: The right hon. Lady has repeated what is in the document Removing Barriers to Achievement, which says that we only want to see special schools providing education for children with the most severe and complex needs. Is she saying that schools for children with moderate learning difficulties do not have a future?

Jacqui Smith: I was spelling out precisely what that future should be. Schools should work in partnership to ensure that children increasingly benefit from being in mainstream schools. There is an important role for special schools working in partnership, sharing expertise and making a base for good-quality provision. I was explaining not only how that is an aspiration but how, through our investment, we are ensuring that that happens.
	We are ensuring, for example, that the benefits and contribution of the specialist school programme are extended to special schools. In December, we announced the setting up of 12 trailblazer special schools with specialist status to act as centres of excellence for just that purpose. We have also announcedthis relates to the point that was made by the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow)that, under our building schools for the future programme to provide 21st century buildings and facilities for all secondary-age pupils, we will provide an additional 66 million this year for special schools alone. That is part of 284 million over the next three years. That is evidence of this Government's commitment

Gregory Barker: Will the Minister give way?

Jacqui Smith: No.
	That is evidence of this Government's commitment to the continuing role of special schools. The fact is, as we have heard, that when the Opposition were in power, there were 234 closures between 1986 and 1997, an average of 27 a year. Since then, there have been 93 closures, an average of 13 a year. The percentage of children in special schools has increased over that time, which seems to suggest not only that we are supporting both mainstream and special schools, but that we are ensuring that parents are able to choose between them.

Gregory Barker: The Minister has just mentioned the sum of money that is set aside for building new special schools. How much of that money is for building special schools to deal with children with moderate learning difficulties?

Jacqui Smith: That money is set aside not simply for building new schools but to ensure that those schools that are in existence get the sort of resources that they need. That, of course, includes special schools for moderate learning difficulties where that is the priority[Interruption.] I know that the theme of Conservative Members today is that Whitehall should decide all, but this is a decision for local education authorities, given the decisions that they are making within the building schools for the future programme.
	The other theme of this debate and of the approach of the hon. Member for Witney is that we need a review. In recent years, there have been major reports on special educational needs from both the Office for Standards in Education and the Audit Commission, which sought the views of parents. We have consulted widely on the development of our special educational needs strategy in the context of those reports. We carried out a separate review of the role of special schools, again with input from parents. The special schools working group made the specific recommendation for the audit.
	The hon. Gentleman was slightly dismissive of the special schools working group. Perhaps he would have been less dismissive if he had understood that, out of the 15 members on that group, nine were special school representatives and parents. This Government listened to the recommendation that they made. The recommendation was for the audit and we are taking that forward.

Barry Sheerman: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the comments by Baroness Warnock in her report are a shock to the system to anyone looking at the matter from outsideI say that as someone who does not have great expertise in special educational needs? It is a shock to the system that someone of that esteem in this area, the author of an original report, has made such a change in her assessment.

Jacqui Smith: Baroness Warnock has made an important contribution to the debate in this area over the years, both in her original report and in the latest one. One of the crucial points that she makes is that, in order for us to meet the individual needs of pupils, in whatever setting they are in, we need to ensure that the resources, the staff and the individual flexible provision are there for them. That is what the Government have been focusing on and will continue to focus on.
	The Opposition's call for a new review suggests that they are asking us to ignore all the work that has been done up until this point. What new evidence do they think that that would produce? I know that this is a period of navel gazing for the Conservative party, but surely the time is right to get on with making further improvements in what children and parents need, not to start another review.
	What is happening in practice is that local authorities are reorganising their provision to meet changing patterns of need. While some special schools may be closing, others are opening. Specially resourced provision is being developed within and alongside mainstream schools. Through the excellent able autism unit in Kingsley college in my constituency, students get the opportunity both to join national curriculum lessons where that is appropriate and to have the particular resources that they need.
	A moratorium on the closure of special schools would prevent local authorities from redeveloping their special educational needs provision to provide such win-win solutions. That is perhaps one of the reasons why local authorities such as Wandsworth, Essex and Dorset are not heeding the call by the hon. Member for Witney for a moratorium. He will need to ensure that his policy proposals are more influential in his own party if he is going to be anything like a convincing leader.
	The Government want to move forward, not backwards and we have the right building blocks in place. Our removing barriers to achievement strategy sets out a long-term programme of action to improve early intervention for children with special educational needs, to build the capacity of our schools and staff who work in them, to meet the wide range of needs in today's classrooms, and to promote much closer working between education, health and social services, so that children and their families get the help that they need in a joined-up way, rather than having to tell their stories to a range of different people.

David Chaytor: Is not the flaw in the Opposition's argument that, by simultaneously calling for a review while determining that inclusion has gone too far, they have prejudged the outcome of any review? By determining that inclusion has gone too far, they are restricting the very flexibility and choice for parents that they claim to support.

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend has ably pointed out the incoherence of, and inconsistency in, the Opposition's approach. In my view, we need now to get the management of special educational needs right at local authority level, so that needs are met, parents have real choices and standards are improved. We have put a team of SEN advisers in place to help local authorities to build capacity and to implement best practice. Our SEN regional partnerships are bringing local authorities together to improve provision in every single English region, and we are making available the investment and capacity to ensure that that happens.
	I commend our amendment to the House, and I hope that all colleagues will join me in seeking to improve outcomes for children with special educational needs and their families.

Edward Davey: I welcome the fact that we are debating the important issue of special educational needs, which is not debated often enough in this Chamber. I am pleased that the Minister has broadened the debate to cover all aspects of SEN, and not just existing buildings. That was an important move, and I hope that my remarks will continue in that vein. At the end of her speech, she mentioned the percentage of children in special schools, and if I heard her correctly, she said that the number has increased. Perhaps I am talking about a different period from the one that she referred to, but according to her 10-year strategy, the percentage has gone down: from 1.5 per cent. in 1983 to 1.1 per cent. in 2004. Perhaps her ministerial colleague can clarify that for the record later on.
	In my first speech as education and skills spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, I need to pay a short tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for   Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). He brought to that role 20 years of experience and understanding, as a former headmaster of secondary schools in Yorkshire. Indeed, he brought far more than that. He brought passion about education and made a real contribution to the education debate in this House. I know that he will continue to do so, and I am grateful to him for his advice and for his policy legacy.
	I would have liked to congratulate the Secretary of State for Education and Skillsif she were hereon her reappointment. We did in fact know each other before we entered this House, and we have discussed many policy issues in the past. I was also the student of her new ministerial colleague from No. 10, Lord Adonis. I gently advise her and other Education Ministers to challenge his latest theories and allegiances, as he has a tendency to change sides mid-way.
	I am not sure how long the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), the latest Notting Hill star pupil, will be in the class to learnhe has head boy elections to participate in. I did not expect him to start canvassing today, but he has. To be fair to him, he has done the House a service today. He introduced an important subject and spoke with balance, sincerity, conviction and understanding, and with the feeling that comes from his own experience. That was helpful.

Sadiq Khan: Has the hon. Gentleman had the benefit of reading a recent article in The Independent, in which a contender for the Conservative leadership talked about his party being a compassionate party that believes in parent power? He also said that he will support parents whose SEN schools are being closed down. In the light of that, is the hon. Gentleman surprised that the current Conservative leader has offered no messages of solidarity with those schools in Wandsworth that are being closed down by its Conservative-run council?

Edward Davey: Not particularly, but I will deal with that point in due course.
	Whatever our disagreements on policywe will doubtless have manyI want to acknowledge that the hon. Member for Witney has helped to put this subject on the political agenda, which is quite an achievement. He talked about the problems in the system and about the human side, on which he was right to focus. For many years, there has been a huge and unmet need for such provision, and some disturbing statistics suggest that that need is growing. The hon. Gentleman pointed to the strategy paper, which suggests that the Government think that numbers will decline as more such children go into mainstream schools. However, the demographics suggest that the need for SEN provision is increasing.
	Of course, the existing state system does provide excellent provision for manyindeed, in some cases it is superb, innovative and cutting edgebut many others experience huge frustration in trying to deal with it. I shall name three such problems, the first of which is the delays that parents experience in getting the initial assessment for their child. The Government's strategy in recent years talks about early intervention, but that is a bit of joke, given that it can take monthssometimes yearsto get an assessment. When such statements do come, increasingly, they are worded imprecisely, so that the local education authority and any other providers can wriggle out of their legal duties. That gives cause for concern, and even when there is a precise statement based on a decent assessment, parents often find it difficult to enforce those rights. So the system is not working.
	There are inherent problems in dealing with this challenging issue, given the extreme variety of special educational needs. As the volte-face by Baroness Warnock has shown, one can have a change of heart, and people can have different opinions on this issue. I should point out to the hon. Gentleman that the debate concerning special schools versus inclusion is something of a false debate. We need both, and we need to reach a consensus on that point. We need to explore the different forms of inclusion and of special schools. We need a continuum of provision, involving co-location and special units, for example.

Tom Levitt: I am sure that all of us sympathise with the hon. Gentleman's comments about parents and their relationship with statements; indeed, we learn of such problems from our postbags every day. But does he not agree that bodies such as parent partnerships already exist precisely to tell parents that they are not alone, that they need not reinvent the wheel, and that they do have friends when it comes to understanding and implementing statements?

Edward Davey: I am grateful for that intervention. I was about to explain how I have come to understand a little of how the system works, not as a parent, but as a constituency MP. I am familiar with such parent partnerships. Sometimes they work, but often, they do not. In my first few years as a Member of this House, many parentsangry mothers, in the mainasked me to help them with their case. Trying to help was frustrating, because we came up against the brick wall of bureaucracy, which was strengthened even by the parent partnerships. The frustration was so great that I decided to get the parents to help themselves, and we set up a support group in the constituency called the Kingston special needs project, whose website I recommend. That group helps parents to get through the minefield of the system. It provides extra support, and parents regard it as more independent than parent partnerships. I acknowledge that such partnerships suit many parents, but many others do not benefit from them. We need to look at other ways of helping them.

Nadine Dorries: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, given that he has spent much of his allotted time talking about old friends. Does he agree that although parent partnerships and the support networks do a very good job, they do nothing to help children who are being statemented to get the places in special schools that they need? In fact, some authorities are minimising the problems that such children have, in the knowledge that once they are statemented at a certain level, there is nowhere for them to go.

Edward Davey: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention and I am coming to that issue. My experience in working with such parents and in setting up the self-help group showed me that there are two systemic problems. First, the system is adversarial. It creates hostility, and for some of the reasons that the hon. Lady alluded to, there is lack of trust. Secondly, links between education, health and social services still do not really exist. Ministers will sayas the Minister did in her opening speechthat the 10-year strategy, Removing Barriers to Achievement, will tackle all these problems, and that the rather narrow audit will add something to the process. But on reading that strategy and examining how the audit has been set up, I doubt whether those policies will address the system's adversarial nature and the need to link services together.
	The adversarial system is, by and large, built around the statementing process. In law, the statement is supposed to provide the rights. Parents battle for statements, and LEAs battle against them to avoid the expenditure that they involve. Appeals are made, solicitors are engaged and experts are consulted. It is probably a familiar, if rather depressing, story for many Members, and certainly for many parents.
	The strategy, it seems, is a gradual one: the Government want to create a parallel system where there are some children on statements, but many others taken off or denied statements. The Government are also trying to adopt other policies, such as early intervention, to persuade parents that their children do not need statements, so that they do not need to go through the process. If they can convince parents and win back their trust, that might be reasonable, but the policy has one basic flaw: what happens about the manifest problems of the statementing process in the interim, before new Labour has built the new Jerusalem of perfect SEN provision without a plethora of statements? There is already a problem now, as there seems to be a set of unannounced policies that are undermining the statementing system even before we reach the new Jerusalem.
	It is becoming a widely held view that SEN tribunals have been got at and that the Department is increasingly reluctant to put pressure on local authorities to investigate complaints against LEAs that are not performing their legal duties. It is almost as though Ministers want to act as if the statement system has already gone or its terms reduced, but that is not good enough. Ministers are doing little or nothing to improve the statementing system because they want to see it wither on the vine.

David Heath: There may be another unannounced policyto create a chaotic system for the training and professional development of educational psychologists. In due course, that will result in there not being the requisite skilled professionals to do the job in the first place.

Edward Davey: My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
	Ministers must tackle these problems. It is their duty to set the national policy framework, but I believe that they are undermining it. I am afraid that they must recognise the problems that LEAs are facing. Spending on special needs is rocketing and the type of spending that councils adopt is difficult to control because some special needs provision comes unexpectedly and cannot be planned for. A family moves to a particular local authority area and overnight there may be a huge increase in expenditure requirements. That is what creates the tension and that is where the hostility and frustration lie. Faced with budget pressure, we all know what LEAs will do: they will build in a culture of saying no, of creating delays and of trying to undermine parents' ability to get statements.

Liz Blackman: Rhondda Cynon Taff LEA gave a presentation to the all-party group on autism. It runs an inclusion policy for children with autism spectrum disorders across the board and there is virtually no statement. Statements provide a lever for parents to try to secure provision. What the Government are trying to and will do, I believe, is to create the capacity and invest the resources so that provision is there. The Government are right to do it that way round and to meet the needs of parents in that way, rather than push desperate parents through a statementing process. I admit that it takes time, but it is happening in some parts of the country.

Edward Davey: I acknowledge that it is happening, as the hon. Lady says, in some parts of the country, but in many other parts of the country it is not. In those circumstances, statementing is the only thing that parents have to look after their children now, here, today when they need special education. What the hon. Lady says is not an excuse for the Government failing to take action to improve the statementing system.
	The articulate and determined parents know that the law is there and some of them have the cash to help their children get statements, but what about the parents who do not know about the law and who do not have the cash? What about their children? By putting our heads in the sand about the statementing process now, we are denying the rights to education of a generation of children, which is simply not good enough. Ministers cannot ignore those problems and sit around waiting for the 10-year strategy to workif, indeed, it does work.
	So what is the solution? Let me be honest: I have been in this job for just over four weeks, as has the hon. Member for Witney. I have just a few gut instincts about where the solutions lie; I do not have a blueprint. We put forward our policies at the electionsmaller class sizes, more investment in teacher training, promoting special schools as centres of excellence. Those are all in place and I believe that they would all help. Nevertheless, as I read the Government strategy and talk to parents, I become convinced that more is needed. That is why we think that a comprehensive review is required. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I do not have a soundbite answer about a moratorium, but I shall put forward some of my first thoughts now and I hope that the Minister will respond to them in kind and with kindness as there may be quite a few flawsbut here they are.
	First, should not the assessment process for a statement be managed by an independent organisationindependent of local government, independent of national Government and independent of any of the providers? Preferably, it would be managed by a multi-discipline assessment centre with health and education professionals sitting around the table, working together and conducting the necessary tests in one or just a few days. The independence would remove the conflict of interests for the LEA and restore parents' trust. The one-stop centre approach would cut the horrendous delays and facilitate the early intervention that, to be fair, is at the heart of removing barriers to achievement.
	Parents will still want to challenge independent assessors through existing mechanisms, but there would surely be far fewer challenges, which would cut down on the bureaucracy of appeals and all the waste of time and money that goes with it. I would genuinely welcome the Minister's response to that idea and in a spirit of open debate I would be pleased to hear the downsides of the proposal.
	My second instinct on getting solutions is that we should look more carefully at the expensive side of special needs provision, as the Government are doing in the audit. We have heard a lot about that today and I welcome it. High costs are one of the key factors driving the hostility in the system, as local bureaucrats are worried that a statement may lead to an expensive provision. Ministers will doubtless say that the audit will look into best practice and seek ways of avoiding duplication and pooling resources. That is all well and good, but we must ensure that decisions reached by the audit can be questioned and not just taken by unaccountable quangos. The SEN partnerships want to ensure that any decisions coming from the audit are accountable.
	My idea is that the audit could be broadened. Could it not consider the idea that the costs of the very needy and expensive cases be transferred from the local authority's budget to the Department's budget? That would be a small centralisation, I accept, but an acceptable one because it is potentially liberating for local authorities and would enable them to plan their budgets more effectively. I do not know whether that would work. We would need to ensure that it was not a recipe for the councils passing the buck, which is where my idea for an independent assessment would kick in. National funding would be triggered only by an independent assessment that judged a child's needs as being above a certain threshold. There would be a real prize in that local authorities could focus on the needs of the less severe special needs children, which they should then be able to manage because of their greater certainty about the budget. There would also be much less friction with, and distrust by, the parents. Again, I hope that the Minister will respond positively.
	I mentioned a second systemic problem with statementing. To be fair, the 10-year strategy begins to address, but does not solve it. I am talking about the importance of multi-agency working. I accept that it is happening on the ground. In my own constituency, Kingston council set up with other partners a joint system for children with disabilities, but I have to say that it is slow, particularly in getting health providers around the table. One of the reasons for that lies in Whitehall, because Whitehall has not told the local health providers to make the joined-up approach a priority. I am not one for too many targetsI am not keen on the NHS target culturebut it seems that Health Ministers are developing targets for health providers without giving them a target for this particular aspect. I believe that Education Ministers should have a word with Health Ministers to join up the approach in Whitehall.

Angela Smith: Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that Every Child Matters and the introduction of integrated children services is exactly the signal needed to help providers work in a joined-up way on special needs and all other children's services?

Edward Davey: That is what I said, if the hon. Lady was listening, but my point was that the people working at the grass roots to make that happen are being prevented from doing so because the Government in Whitehall are not joining up their actions, targets and policies. That is what local agencies are telling me.
	There are many other issues in the SEN debate that could be mentionedthe need for more specialist teachers, the need for more teachers in mainstream schools to be trained on special needs and so forthbut I need to focus on the core issues raised by the hon. Gentleman, since it is his debate. Above all, I want to concentrate on his call for a moratorium on the closure of special schools. I confess that, initially, I was much attracted to that idea, which has the virtue of simplicity. It also has the good political virtue of promising much but delivering little. I do not know whether those are virtues that the hon. Gentleman prizesperhaps we shall seebut the debate has shown already that this non-policy is unwinding fast.
	To start with, we have heard many examples of Tory authorities closing special schools, both now and in the recent past, despite that party's so-called national policy. My list includes some of the schools that have been mentioned, and it turns out that many Conservative councils do not agree with their national spokesman. We have heard about Worcestershire, but what about East Sussex? In the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), the Tories are closing St. Anne's school. What about Tory-run Wandsworth, where Chartfield school in Putney and The Vines school in Battersea are being closed? What about Tory-run Hampshire, where the Hawthorns school in Basingstoke is being closed?
	Does the hon. Gentleman have an answer to those questions? Before he gets up, I advise him that I will be looking at his answer to see whether he is able to ride those two horses successfully. At one stage in his speech he pointed to Gloucestershire, where the Tory authority has been able to keep schools open, or reopen them. On the other hand, however, he defended Conservative councils and said that the problem was all the fault of national Government. Which is it?

David Cameron: The hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech, and I agree with much of what he has said about statementing. However, he said that it is worth considering taking statementing away from LEAs and that we need to widen the audit of special schools. I think that he accepts that some of the guidance that I have quoted is not right, so would not it be better to have a moratorium until we have sorted the matter out?

Edward Davey: No, for a whole set of reasons. The hon. Gentleman demonstrated his inconsistency on this point when I challenged him earlier in the debate. I asked whether he agreed with Baroness Warnock that some special schools were failing and needed to be reorganised, and he said that he did. Is he saying that if he were a Minister he would impose a national moratorium from Westminster? That would stop sensible reorganisations that improve education, that have been widely consulted on and which have the support of parents. The hon. Gentleman's contention is absolute nonsense.
	The hon. Gentleman poses as a moderniser and reformer. Those Conservative Members on the Back Benches who support him talk about decentralisation and a relaxation of the grip of national Government, but then he shoots off in the other direction and says that he wants Whitehall to interfere. That does not wash, and he has been found out.
	We must remember that the whole point of this debate is to raise standards. Ofsted has found that some special schools are failing. The figures show that special schools are three times more likely to require special measures. That should worry us. There are many brilliant special schools, and I have three in my constituencySt. Phillip's in Chessington, Dysart in Surbiton and Bedelsford in Kingstonbut other colleagues tell me that they have special schools in their constituencies that are not working so well. I think that the moratorium idea would get in the way of sensible local decision making, and that it would therefore be a mistake.
	The hon. Gentleman has missed a huge opportunity by going for the soundbite policy. He could have joined me in criticising the Government about things for which they really are responsiblefor example, the Department for Learning and Skills itself. I and many others believe that the Department is not fulfilling its role in investigating complaints against LEAs about their conduct of their SEN duties, and that it is not enforcing the law.
	Section 497 of the Education Act 1996 provides that people can make formal complaints to the Secretary of State when they believe that an LEA is acting illegally, and that the Secretary of State can intervene in such matters. However, the section of the Department that deals with such complaints is woefully understaffed, judging by the time taken for investigations and by the inability to enforce the law. That is why our amendment calls for a National Audit Office investigation, so that we can ask an independent body to look at what is really going on. Failing that, I hope that the Select Committee will address the matter.
	The hon. Gentleman also failed to set out positive policies for special schools in his speech. We Liberal Democrats have shown our commitment to special schools, as our policy is to build them up as resource centres to support local schools in their specialist provision. We think that special schools could be linked to university research departments, so that they could benefit directly fromand be involved withthe latest research in special education. That model has been used in America very successfully.
	Perhaps we should excuse the flaws in the policy espoused by the hon. Gentleman, partly because we all know that he is a man in a hurry. More charitably, we could say that he has helped catapult the issue of special needs up the agenda, and I pay tribute to him for that.
	When the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), winds up the debate, I hope that she will not be complacent and make yet more attempts to claim that all the problems have been dealt with in the strategy. They have not, and it is time that the Government thought again.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has placed an eight-minute limit on all Back-Bench speeches. That limit applies from now on.

Barry Sheerman: The debate has been most interesting and informative. That is due in part to its subject, and in part to the fact that the general election is now in the past. Education debates are inevitably rather partisan and nasty in the run-up to an election, but today's debate has been good.
	I welcome the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) to his post. I thought that his speech was very good, and my only slight resentment is that he gets three times as long as someone who has been chairman of the Select Committee on Education and Skills for quite some time and who aspires to do that job again. However, I have eight minutes and I will try to use them well.
	I begin by confessing my relevant ignorance of this subject. In my time as Chairman, the Select Committee has not looked at special educational needs or special schools. Those matters were on our list but we have not got around to them, as other pressing topics demanded our attention. However, Baroness Warnock's speech and new paper lead me to believe that, if I have anything to do with it, the Select Committee must make this matter a very high priority.
	Sometimes I wish that parliamentarians had more confidence in their own institutions. Select Committees provide a very good vehicle for cross-party investigation of matters such as this. The hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) called for independent reviews by the NAO and for Government intervention, and even Baroness Warnock said that there should be an independent element. One gets a little tired of that, as matters such as this are perfect for investigation by the Select Committee, which always provides high-quality reports.
	I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on choosing this topic for today's debate, and I know that he has a great interest in it personally, as do I. However, if I were to be critical I would say that his speech was spoiled by his determination to find a gimmick. In this case, his gimmick was his call for a moratorium. The hon. Gentleman is quite a sensible man, and wants to lead that dreadful bunch over therea possible contradiction in terms.
	Imposing a moratorium would stop what we are doing in Kirklees. Some of our special schools were housed in pretty awful buildings, with bad accessibility. I would not want any child to be educated in those circumstances. We are closing some of those schools and providing buildings that offer the same capacity but which are modern and pleasant and with a nice environment for being taught in. I would hate that process to be stopped. Many local authorities around the country are undertaking similar improvements.
	Labour authorities have closed quite a few schools, although Conservative ones have closed more. However, authorities of all parties have closed schools for very good reasons. There has been a history of neglect in special school provision, and the ethos was that Victorian buildings were good enough for such schools. The priority was always to provide modern buildings for the other types of school. Although I think that the moratorium proposal is wrong, I applaud the fact that this matter has been drawn to the attention of the House and that it now has a higher profile.
	I have done a little bit of homework on this matter, mainly by reading Warnock, old and new. I also looked at what Ofsted said about special schools, and determined how much attention the Department paid to the matter in its most recent annual report. I remind the House of what Ofsted reported in respect of SEN provision and inclusive schools. It concluded that the proportion of SEN students in mainstream schools has not been affected by the inclusion framework, and that there were real difficulties in integrating pupils with social and behavioural problems. It added that there was a real conflict between meeting individual educational needs and efficient education for other children.
	The Ofsted report also found that between 2001 and 2003 there had been a 25 per cent. increase in the number of pupils in referral unitsthat is, units to which children can be removed from mainstream classes. It reported a wide variation in the quality of teaching offered to pupils with SEN, and that mainstream and special schools remained far too isolated from one another. That seems to make a pretty good case for the Select Committee considering the issue forensically. The DFES's 2004 departmental report contained a section on SEN, but this year's report includes only two passing referencesso the Department needs our help, and I hope that we will be able to give it.
	In the short time available, I want to put such things in context. We are all guiltyare we not?in education, as in any other policy area, of being victims of fashion. We get swayed by a fashion, and when a fashion is really pervasive and even pernicious, we do not even know that we are part of it. I remember naming our first daughter Lucy, without realising that the world and their wife were also choosing the same name at the same time. One year, the name Lucy did not figure at all in the most favourite list in The Times; the next year, the Perks in The Archers called their daughter Lucy. Hon. Members will notice that all my other children have very strange names.
	When we are part of a fashion, we are pushed this way and that by it. Every party in the House was swayed by the fashion of inclusion, of which the original Warnock view was part, and it has continued to be a very strong fashion. It is partly based on the truth that many of the people who come to me as their Member of Parliament are terrified that their children will be designated as different in any way. They want their children to go to a regular school, in a regular class, and they do not want any statement or any label to be put on their children.
	Another group of people come to see us as Members of Parliament, and they desperately want special attention, desperately want a statement and desperately want their children to go to special school if that is appropriate. That is the truth of the matter, and I do not know which sort of parent will turn up when I hold a constituency surgery; but, normally, one or other of them does.
	We have got to get the balance right, and enough evidence can be found in the reports that have already been written to say that there is a real worry about special schools and a real concern about statementing. How many of us do not know that there is a long wait for statements? There is a long wait to see an educational psychologistand people do not even dream of seeing a clinical psychologist. If the problems are really deep, people can wait 14 months in Kirklees. I do not know how long the wait is in other areas. So there is a problem, but it is not one that should divide the parties or politicians. We should put our hand very quickly to holding a good Select Committee inquiry, to which all parties can give evidence.

Mark Harper: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman). I urge the Government Whips to set up the Select Committees as early as possible. I would certainly be very pleased if the Opposition Whips allowed me to serve on the Select Committee on Education and Skills, and I would have great pleasure in voting for the hon. Gentleman as its Chairman.
	I share something with the hon. Gentleman: I was not very knowledgeable about the subject until I became a candidate in the Forest of Dean, where it was a prominent local issue. We had two special schoolsDean Hall and Oakdenethat were closed by the former administration in Gloucestershire. There was a consultation exercise, although it appeared to be consultation in name rather than reality, and during that process I met a huge number of parents who spoke eloquently at public meetings in arguing the case for proper provision for their children. One thing that struck me was being told that there were 16,000 children with some kind of special need in Gloucestershire, 15,000 of whom were already being educated in mainstream schools. That seemed a pretty good record of inclusion, with 1,000 pupils being educated in some kind of special school.
	The administration wanted to go further by pretty much getting rid of moderate learning difficulty provision and moving all those children into mainstream education, whether or not that suited them. To an outside observer, that process appeared to be driven by ideology, rather than by looking at the evidence. The head teachers at both the special and mainstream schools opposed the policy, as did the teachers and parents. Even some children spoke up against the policy at those meetings. The former administration in Gloucestershire refused to listen.
	The most shameful thing was that the then portfolio holder for education took the decision to close those schools without even having the courtesy to visit them while they were in operation or to meet the teachers and pupils to see them in action. That is a lesson for politicians. If we are taking such decisions, we have an obligation to visit institutions before doing so. The same decision might still have been taken, but at least it would have been done in full possession of the facts.
	In the Forest of Dean, the two special schoolsOakdene and Dean Hallwill be closed in September. A new special schoolthe Heart of the Forest community special schoolis under construction and will start operating in September. It is specifically designed to cater for children with severe learning difficulties, profound multiple learning difficulties and complex needs. I am sure that it will provide an excellent education for those children, and it has my full support.
	The problem is that there will be a gap in provision for those children who have moderate learning difficulties and who were previously supported at Dean Hall special school. They will have no option but to go into the mainstream. Many have tried the mainstream before, and they have been failed. A lot of the children at Dean Hall special schoolthis is one of the key points made by their parentshave tried mainstream education before and it has failed them, and their parents have therefore sought special school provision. I am concerned that, come the autumn, those children will have no other option.
	The Minister for Schools said that Conservative Members were fixated on buildings and institutions. I do not think that that is right. I was struck very powerfully by the fact that, although both the schools to which I refer had relatively poor-quality accommodation, the essence of the school was shown by the head teacher's leadership, the quality of the staff and a lot of the voluntary work done by the parents. That is what makes the school. Clearly, it is much better if the quality of buildings and physical equipment is high; but that, in itself, cannot compensate for a lack of high-quality teaching or high-quality leadership by the head teacher.
	Another thing that struck me was the fact that because most children with moderate learning difficulties are already in mainstream education, as evidenced by the figures that I gave earlier15,000 out of 16,000 children with special needsthose children with moderate learning difficulties who remain in special schools are likely to be at the more challenging end of the spectrum. They are likely to have needs that are more difficult to meet, and they are therefore unlikely to be successful in mainstream schools.
	A further point worth mentioning is that we talk about inclusion, by which we often mean inclusion in mainstream schooling. It is also worth thinking about what happens to children after they finish their education and how well they are included in society. One advantage of special schools is that, because they are much smaller, they can give much more personal attention to children in their last few years at school and to how they get those children into higher education, further education or meaningful employment.
	I was struck at Dean Hall by how children in their last couple of years of education received personal attention from the staff, who looked for a proper route out of that school for the children, whether into local further education provision or work with a local company, or by moving to Gloucester to attend GloscatGloucestershire College of Arts and Technologyor another education institute. Secondary schools may be much largerperhaps with 1,000 or 1,500 pupilsand my experience of mainstream schooling suggests that that type of inclusion in society will not be as successful as specialist provision.
	Some of Baroness Warnock's statements have been mentioned already, and I was also struck by some of them. On Monday 14 June, she said on the Today programme that there are
	a large number of children with special needs who will never flourish in mainstream schools.
	I agree. She has proposed a system of special schools that can serve a wider variety of needs than just those of pupils with severe learning difficulties. She wants to include autistic children and to ensure that those schools would be small enough to provide a reassuring and personal environment for emotionally vulnerable pupils. I support her in that case, too.
	Finally, it is important that we listen to parents. They have to care for their children 24 hours a daythat is especially true for the parents of children with severe learning difficultiesand they know their children best. During the consultation in my area, I realised that those parents have enough on their hands without having to fight a battle to get their child into a special school and then to keep that school open. We should fight that battle for them in the House, and that is why I commend the motion.

Geoffrey Robinson: The whole House welcomes the opportunity to debate this issue, and it is good that the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has raised it. We all know that he has a deep personal interest in the issue and commitment to it.
	On the other hand, it is a pity that the House will divide on the motion. I suppose that as it is an Opposition day motion, there is not much option, but it seems irrational to divide on the point about a moratorium. A blanket decision imposed on local authorities by central Government would go against the spirit of greater local independence and decision making, to which everyone in the House aspires. It is also irrational because we have no reasonable grounds for saying that there should be a moratorium. Some school closures may have to proceed for good reasons. Nor is there any reason for thinking that the Government are intent on closure per se, so that is an unfortunate point on which to divide the House.
	The hon. Gentleman seemed puzzled about the number of school closures. The figures for the 10 years before 1997 and the eight years since do not mean much in themselves, and they show no predisposition to closure. I think the figures are 27 a year during the last 10 years of Conservative Government and 13 during eight years of Labour Government. They show no particular trend.
	I want to refer to the situation in Coventry, the city I represent. My fellow MP for the city, my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham) is in the Chamber today. There are local proposals for the wholesale reorganisation of SEN arrangements in the city. When the council introduced the proposals, it pointed out that by law the guidance in the code must not be ignored. It is only guidance, however, and the important thing is how it is interpreted in practice. The guidance refers to a stronger right for children with SEN to be educated in mainstream schools. I have difficulty with the use of the word right in that statement because it suggests an overriding inclination, irrespective of anything else, to increase inclusion in mainstream schools. As a general point of principle and guidance, I do not argue against that objective but the presumption of a right makes it an obligation for local authorities to achieve it, which could override other considerations. The same pressure, allied to another to which I shall refer later, led the council to propose reorganisation. It stated that the ambition over the next few years was to replace all existing special needs schools with brand new purpose-built schools collocated on the sites of neighbourhood schools. That may be a good idea, but the presumption that there is only one way to proceed implies that a blueprint will be imposed locally, irrespective of the existing organisation and provision of services.
	The proposals are radical. They are out for consultationalthough as we all know, things are seldom if ever changed as a result. It is proposed that 11 schools will be reduced to seven and that the capacity for children with special needs will be reduced from 850 to 600. Those are radical shifts. When I spoke to the local director of education, he told me not to worry because there was nothing too dramatic about the proposals and that they would be introduced gradually. I replied that a 30 per cent. reduction in capacity and in the number of schools was considerable by any standards. He then said, But three of those will go into one school. I said, Have you any idea of the problems that will cause for head teachers, teachers, and specialist staff in the schools?. He said, Don't worry, we're not going to get rid of any staff, to which I replied that that would make things even more complicated.
	My appeal to the director of education is the same as my plea to the Government. Officials and the Government have become obsessed with structural reorganisation as an end in itself. That applies to foundation hospitals and primary care trusts. Every time we reorganise something we think it will be better but we never leave things in place long enough to judge the results before we move on to another reorganisation. I regret to say that that applied as much to the Conservative Government when they were in power, eons ago, as it does now. There is a continuum of obsession among the officials who administer our affairs.

Jim Cunningham: Does my hon. Friend agree that in Coventry we seem to be in a state of perpetual reorganisation and that, given the special cases that he has just mentioned, we should be careful how we go about things?

Geoffrey Robinson: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who has great experience as he was a distinguished leader of Coventry council for many years before he joined us in this place.
	My appeal is not that we start with a new blueprint but that we consider what exists already and build on it, consistent with the principles and good guidance that the Government have given us. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman; the guidance itself is not wrong.
	Two things have occurred since we embarked on the reorganisation in Coventry. First, we have heard Baroness Warnock's new views, which cannot be ignored, although she seems to be going from one clear-cut set of principles, which led us too far in one direction, to another position where she almost seems to be saying that what we did then was no good. Clearly, however, much good came from her first report.
	Secondly, a national audit is under way of the situation in local government. That will provide a wealth of information about what is good and what is working. We shall then be able to consider how to improve provision in future. We need to take stock. We need not a moratorium but a period to reflect on where we have done wellas we have done in many aspects. We need to see what is working and to examine the work of specialist teams and howshort of direct inclusionthe relationship between special needs schools and mainstream schools can be improved. All that work could be brought to bear on the reorganisation on which Coventry seems hell bent.
	When I put that point to the director of education in Coventry, he again told me not to worry because the authority had anticipated Baroness Warnock's report and had already adjusted its plans. He said that their proposals were bang in line with the views of Lady Warnock. When I asked him, What about the National Audit Office? he said that there was not even an audit for what was happening in Coventry. I assured him that I would not criticise the council but that I wanted to ensure that what was done corresponded to what was needed.
	Another thing that drives the obsession for reorganisation is the crock of gold made available by one of the Minister's predecessors, who told us that over the next 10 years there would be a complete rebuild of all secondary schools. Local authorities want to seize that crock of gold and build new schools, so the whole reorganisation process is about building. Building is important but it is not the only thing. We need a clear statement from the Government that refurbishment where necessary and appropriate will also qualify for the money. Like extensions and expansions, refurbishment should be part of the programme.
	I am grateful to have had the opportunity to speak, and I urge the Government to be clear in their guidance about the form in which the money will be made available and the purposes for which it is to be used, so that there will not be misconceived presumptions in local government that the money should be spent only on new buildings.

David Evennett: I am delighted to be able to participate in this important debate on special schools and special educational needs. We have had a high-quality debate. I enjoyed the comments made by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), as I always did was when I was previously a Member of the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) made an excellent speech. I am pleased to support the motion moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), who made a rational and moderate speech. I welcomed his analysis of the situation and his suggestions about how we should approach such an important aspect of education.
	I am worried about the Government guidelines on inclusion and their consequences. I was also disappointed by the opening remarks of the Minister for Schools. Much of this Government gives good talk but not an awful lot of action on the ground, when it matters. It was especially telling that the Minister failed to acknowledge the worth of special schools that cater for pupils with moderate learning difficulties or to address their future. The main thing that came out of her speech was the fact that she would not acknowledge that those schools do a wonderful job and are relevant. Conservative Members wish to develop such schools further.
	Education was a major issue during the election. People in my constituency with children with special educational needs, statements or special school places were worried about where this aspect of education is going. Much of the debate on education is about aspects of education other than this one, so I welcome the fact that we are debating such an important subject today.
	In my years out of the House, I worked as a lecturer in a further education college. That, together with the fact that I am a governor of both St. Paulinus Church of England primary school in Crayford and Townley grammar school for girls in Bexleyheath, has kept me in touch with statements and special needs in mainstream schools. I have subsequently learned quite a lot about the special schools in my borough: Woodside school, Shenstone school and Marlborough school. All do a fantastic job for their pupils, so the teachers, governors and parents must be congratulated on the hard work that they do. My borough is fortunate to have a wide cross-section of different schools offering different provision.
	A fact that has not been emphasised enough today, except by my hon. Friend, is that it is pupils who matter most. We have had a lot of debate about buildings and finance, but we must never lose sight of the fact that we are talking about pupils with special needs who need to be developed so that they can have rich and fulfilling lives. We should put the needs of children first. Children are all different, which is why Conservative Members say that we cannot have one size for everyone because we believe in choice and diversity. Despite the good intentions of educationists, when they produce theories they sometimes lose sight of the fact that we are talking about the needs of children and what their parents want.
	There has of course been a move towards inclusion for special needs children, which is right and welcome for children who can benefit from such mainstream education. If we can provide extra resources so that they can have a rich and fulfilling education in a mainstream school, that is really welcome because it is excellent news for both parents and children. However, if inclusion is just a politically motivated approach, it is not right. Including children in the mainstream when that is not in their interest is not good for parents, teachers, schools, other children in the establishments or, ultimately, the children themselves. If they do not get the advantages that they need, such as extra-curricular activities, extra provision or different provision, they will suffer.

Sadiq Khan: If the hon. Gentleman's analysis that the Government are forcing children into mainstream schools is correct, how does he explain the fact that the number of children in special schools has remained roughly consistent over the past eight years and the percentage of children in special schools has risen in the past two years?

David Evennett: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's point, but I do not think that he is correct. If he looks at the figures, I think that he will find that there are now 6,000 fewer places in special schools. Special schools have been closed while others are threatened with closure.

Sadiq Khan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Evennett: No, we must give other hon. Members the opportunity to speak.
	The Government exert pressure to encourage inclusion by trying to get more children into mainstream schools. That is good in some cases, but we must analyse the current situation. We must determine what we think is best, where the resources can be used best and, ultimately, what is best for children. I am worried that children with severe or complex learning difficulties are being gradually moved into mainstream schools that are not appropriate for their needs.
	During the election campaign, parents told me that their interests were not being taken into account. They want a voice on what is going on with special educational needs, and they want a say in special schools. They raised with me on several occasions the process of statementing, which the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) highlighted earlier in an interesting part of his speech. The statementing process often takes too long. It is often too bureaucratic, and it has not achieved what parents want, which is the best for their children. We thus want the process to be examined.
	If inclusion is to be the theme of special needs provision, parents should be much more involved in the process. They deserve choice because they know what is best for their children. They should consult with the experts, rather than just being told what is happening. The Minister for Schools omitted to say that she wanted to involve parents in the process to a greater extent, look after children's interests and ensure that the best outcome is found for all, so I hope that the Under-Secretary will address that point.
	I hope that the Government will take on board several of the ideas put forward in the excellent speech made by my hon. Friend. They should take parents' views into account and examine the law that currently restricts choiceI think that it is biased against special schools. The current audit should cover all special schools; not just schools dealing with severe learning difficulties, but those dealing with moderate learning difficulties. There has been some banter about the word moratorium, but if we are going to conduct a serious study, it would be useful to stop where we are at the moment instead of carrying on and finding that the study's findings come too late. A moratorium would thus be a good thing.
	I am worried about this aspect of education, but I am afraid that nothing that the Minister for Schools said gave me any confidence that the Government are considering it constructively and with an open mind. Parents and choice should be the top priority, but I am worried that there is a bias against special schools. I hope that the Under-Secretary will take on board some of the genuine concerns of Conservative Members and act accordingly.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Any debate about children with special educational needs is bound to be emotive. We are talking about real children and real families and there are many parents in my constituency whom I admire enormously for their dedication to their children and for the support that they give to the school that their child attendsit does not matter whether it is a mainstream school or a special school.
	It is important that we continue to provide special school education, but there has been a growing recognition among parents, teachers and society as a whole that mainstream education can deliver the same support as a special school, and that not only do the children with special needs benefit, but the mainstream school and the children who attend it also benefit, and all children learn that we are not all the same and that children with special needs should not be hidden away but are all part of an inclusive community where we can demonstrate that everyone makes a valuable contribution.
	As more and more parents have seen the benefits of mainstream education, more and more of them are making that choice, and that is why we have seen falling rolls at special schools. Parents of special needs children are naturally very protective of them, but most of them want their children to be independent, both when they are at school and when they grow up. That is possible only in an inclusive society that recognises difference but values everyone. In my constituency, the local education authority has identified 26 different and diverse groups that have special needs, including learning difficulties, sensory impairments and physical disabilities. The LEA is striving to ensure that special educational needs provisions meet everyone's needs.
	I want parents to be able to make informed decisions about their preferences. To make that decision, parents need to be reassured that the same level of specialist support is available in mainstream schools as in special schools. I am sure that the national audit of SEN specialist services, support and provision that is under way will be an enormous help in assessing needs and provision.
	It is important that such decisions are made locally. LEAs, in partnerships with parents and schools, are closest to their communities and best placed to meet their educational needs. Although the number of parents opting for special schools in my constituency has declined, mainstream schools are not suitable for some children. That applies even to specialist units within mainstream schools, but with more parents opting for mainstream schooling, we have to consider the viability of smaller special schools with falling rolls.
	My constituency falls within the Portsmouth LEA, and there are two particular special schools with falling rolls. One of the schools is in my constituency and the other is in Portsmouth, South. One is housed in a building that has difficulty in meeting the needs of access, mobility and health and safety. The other is on a limited site that is not suitable for expansion. Both schools have their own ethos and culture and both are fiercely proud of ownership. There is a fierce pride among parents, staff and pupils, who are prepared to defend their school to the hilt.
	Portsmouth LEA received 5 million targeted capital fund allocation for special needs allocation, and it was decided that the best way to meet the difficulties of the two schools was to close them both and build a new school. Inevitably, when the proposal was first mooted there was fierce resistance. Parents saw only what was happening to their school and were worried about how their children would manage. We all know that children with special educational needs need stability. The parents were worried about the effect that the change would have on the education of their children, along with the disruption that would inevitably occur.
	Parents want their special needs children to live as independent a life as possible. If the numbers in a school fall too far, there will be fewer teachers, so teachers have to hold responsibility for two or more subjects, as well as a similar number of whole-school aspects such as assessment. That means that they would be spending a great deal of time preparing schemes of work and moderating the work of their colleagues, which could mean little time left for out-of-school activities. Very small schools find it more difficult to offer the depth and breadth of subjects expected by Ofsted, which I think should be an entitlement of all pupils, whether in mainstream or special schools.
	As the consultation process moved forward, people began to see the benefits that would accrue from a brand-new purpose-built building housing the full range of facilities best to serve the curriculum and learning needs of children with severe and complex learning difficulties and disabilities while meeting the highest specifications of access and mobility.
	The ethos and culture of a school do not come from its buildings, but from the staff and leadership of the school. In Portsmouth, the staff and leadership will come together in the new school. From September 2006, out of the closure of two special schools will come a better facility in a purpose-built building delivering a curriculum and out-of-school activities that are designed to give these special needs pupils the tools and experiences that they will need so that, as adults, when they leave school, they can live as independent a life as possible. Surely, that is what special needs education is all about. I am concerned that, if the Opposition had their way and there were a moratorium on the closure of special schools, those children in my constituency would be denied their brand-new school and all the opportunities that go with it.

Sammy Wilson: I do not wish to make them appear vulnerable, but a number of Members, mostly from the Government, have said that this debate should not be conducted in an atmosphere of acrimony and point scoring. I can assure the House that I do not intend to speak in that way today, although I hope to have an opportunity to do so another time. I do not have any party interest in the squabble between the Labour party, which does not stand in Northern Ireland, and the Conservative party, which does stand, even though it is hardly worth while to do so in some constituencies. This is an important issue, as many people with youngsters who have a difficult time in school because of a learning disability would like genuine improvement in the system rather than point scoring by the two parties.
	I shall look at a number of issues that need to be addressed. Howeverand this is the only political point that I shall score todayit was incredible that the Minister should say that there was no policy of closure only to admit that nearly 100 schools had been closed during the period in which the Administration has been in charge of education. To me, that seems like a policy of closure. The first thing to do is look at changing the balance. There is an undoubted bias towards mainstreaming, and thus a bias against special schools. Indeed, Baroness Warnock accepted that when she was honest about the disastrous nature of the policy. In a damning indictment, she said that a disastrous legacy had created
	confusion of which children are the casualties.
	For a number of years now, many families have come to realise that their youngsters have not received the education that they deserve. There is increasing awareness that social inclusion does not always mean educational inclusion. Sometimes, for youngsters' own protection, it is important to remove them from the rough and tumble of mainstream schools and give them the opportunity to be taught in a different environment. The policy that provides the right to mainstream schooling has sent out the wrong signal. The Minister cited the report by the chief inspector of schools and said that there had been an improvement in standards, but the Ofsted report said that there remains uncertainty about what constitutes adequate progress for pupils with SEN. If Ofsted finds it difficult to know what constitutes progress, it is incredible that the Minister should say that progress has taken place.
	The Ofsted report was less than glowing about provision in mainstream schools. It said that a minority of mainstream schools meet special needs requirements very well but that admission to mainstream schools of pupils with social and behavioural difficultieslet us not forget, such difficulties constitute the biggest increase in SENhas proved to be the hardest test of the inclusion framework. Inspectors have all pointed out that even the most committed headmasters have reservations when asked to admit pupils with high levels of need, especially when those children have previously attended mainstream schools without success. The chief inspector's report suggested that mainstreaming is not always the most preferable route.
	A variety of provision is needed. The Minister announced this week an extra 3.5 million for special needs provision in education in Northern Ireland. That is very welcome, given the pressure that there was. I have spoken to a number of teachers in special needs schools in Northern Ireland. They feel devalued by the emphasis on mainstreaming. They see that as a slight on special needs schools which, as other speakers have acknowledged, often provide the expertise that mainstream schools draw on, and provide an opportunity for youngsters who are not suited to mainstream schools.
	We have a number of mainstream schools in Northern Ireland where special units have been introduced, sometimes because it was an easy way when there was spare capacity. In some cases that has worked out well and in some cases not so well. It is ironic that, in my constituency, where I met the Minister last week, a school that has a special unit within it, where the youngsters have separate opportunities to be educated and join the mainstream youngsters for certain activities, is to be closed. It is a model that seems to have worked well.
	The Minister spoke of capacity building in mainstream schools. That could have an important effect on statementing. Members have spoken about the delay in obtaining statements. A third of educational psychologists' time is taken up drawing up statements, each of which costs about 2,500, and still many people have to wait a long time before they get a statement. There is also an equality issue. The situation in Northern Ireland is no different from that in the rest of the United Kingdommiddle-class parents seem to have more access to statements than parents from less well-off backgrounds. They have more skills and know the system better. That needs to be addressed.
	We would need fewer statements, though not as few as Baroness Warnock imagined2 per cent. of youngsters statementedif there was provision and capacity building in mainstream schools, where youngsters with moderate learning difficulties could quickly be taken in and given some help, rather than parents feeling that they have to use statementing as the only way to get the extra provision. Capacity building has an important role to play in reducing the demand for statements.
	There are many other issues, but time will beat me. The subject is important, given that, in Northern Ireland alone, there are 10,600 youngsters with statements and across the United Kingdom many hundreds of thousands

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Let me say to the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) that there will be other days.

Judy Mallaber: In Amber Valley, the proportion of pupils in maintained special schools is the same now as in 1997. I want to praise the skills and dedication of teachers and other staff in those schools and of those working with pupils with special needs in mainstream schools. Parents rightly want the choice of what is right for their child.
	I have sat in the station buffet in Derby watching young people have an animated conversation through the glass doors. They had come from the Royal School for the Deaf. I have also been in a Committee Room in the House seeing staff from Aldercar infants school in my constituency receive a national training award for their work with deaf children who are integrated into their school. Even the taxi drivers get training in sign language and parents who got involved now have national vocational qualifications in social care and special needs.
	National policies are carried out by local authorities. If Labour had an agenda to close special schools and to limit choice, we would see it in Labour Derbyshire. Labour does not have that agenda. I shall give some examples. Derbyshire county council has had excellent ratings three times running in the comprehensive performance assessments. Ofsted says it is a good LEA and it has above average performance on special needs. Derbyshire's principal educational psychologist has nearly finished an 18-month review of all special needs, including special schools. Derbyshire's cabinet member for education said to me yesterday, This review is not to close special schools, but to provide a mixed pattern of education to meet the needs of children and parents. Do the Opposition really want to take away Derbyshire's right to assess local needs?
	Let us examine the case of a special school that did close in the neighbouring constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Liz Blackman). Two schools amalgamated because the number of children with moderate disabilities seeking places fell, which left spare places. It made sense to close one school to ensure proper provision for those pupils who needed it, and parents were consulted and extra resources obtained. Some of the children at the school had severe physical disabilities, but their cognitive abilities required a fuller curriculum than that provided in that special school, so an enhanced resources provision unit was set up at Aldercar school.
	I recently visited that unit, which has excellent facilities, and met Louise, who has cerebral palsy and uses an augmentative electronic communications system, which it was amazing to see her use. I met Robert, who has severe cerebral palsy. He used to go to a residential school out of the county, but his parents became concerned because he withdrew into himself and did not enjoy the residential experience, and they asked for him to come to Aldercar school. Those children spend time in the special unit when they need special help, but they also spend a lot of time in the mainstream school, which has to amend the curriculum accordingly. That allows Louise to do PE and Carl, who wants to study the performing arts, to work on his BTEC with other pupils.
	Aldercar school takes pupils other than those in that unit, including the most severely autistic child in Derbyshire in mainstream education. Her parents asked for her to go to the school because they wanted her to experience mainstream education, and they are delighted by her progress. When she does funny things, such as quacking, the other children say, Oh, that is Emilyshe is part of the school. In September, the school will take a child with multiple problems with muscular dystrophy, and, again, his parents want him to attend the school. Those parents had a choice and asked for their child to go to that school, which is the important point. We need provision that suits children's needs and that is right for individual children.
	The children whom I have mentioned attend a mainstream school with special provision, but other children attend special schools. Last year, I visited a special school in Alfreton in my constituency, which was very concerned about staffing and resources. Derbyshire county council has generally been underfunded in comparison with southern counties, and although the gap has been closing, it still lags behind on special school provision, resources, funding and staffing. As well as putting money into mainstream schools, the county council has halved the gap between current special needs provision in Derbyshire and average special needs provision around the country, and it hopes to close that gap completely. Does that sound like Labour closing special schools?

Sadiq Khan: My hon. Friend is discussing the experiences of parents in Labour-controlled Derbyshire. Will she comment on the experience of parents in Conservative-controlled Wandsworth? The parent of a child whose school closed has said:
	I can vouch for the fact that the Tory council were ruthless in their determination to close the school.

Judy Mallaber: That is shameful, and it shows the contrast between what happens in some Conservative authorities and what happens in my Labour-controlled authority. The Opposition are plain wrong to suggest that closing special schools is Labour policy, when we are seeking to provide choice and to examine need.
	In my constituency, the Holbrook autism centre, which has skilled staff and good resources, caters for severely autistic children. Derbyshire county council has allocated the centre an extra 1.3 million to allow it to take 12 extra students, but it has also developed enhanced resources provision for autistic children in three other mainstream schools in the north of the county and at a school near Aldercar school. Aldercar, incidentally, does not just cater for middle-class childrenit is in the most deprived part of my constituency and does good things for children of all abilities.
	Derbyshire is providing extra help and resources not only for a specialist autism centre in my constituency but for autistic children in mainstream schools. How on earth can one say that that sounds like Labour refusing to allow parents choice? That is simply not the case.
	Such decisions are not easy. A woman came to see me with her child, who had Asperger's. She was completely torn. The experts were suggesting that he should go to mainstream school to make the most of his educational abilities, but she wondered whether he should go to a special residential school to help him with the problems that Asperger's children have with their social skills.
	This morning, before the debate, when I was checking some of the facts with the head of special needs in Derbyshire, he told me: We are more concerned with outcomes than with any dogma. We are concerned with pupils making progress and with meeting parents' and pupils' wishes and needs. That is what we are trying to do, with considerable difficulty, in Labour Derbyshire. Please do not let us put Derbyshire into a straitjacket based on dogma or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), who is the former, and possibly future, Chair of the Education and Skills Committee, said, on gimmicks. It is not helpful to lurch from one view to another. As Baroness Warnock rightly reminded us, some children need to go into special schools; we need to consider her report carefully. I am sorry to say that we should not engage in Tory leadership battles, no matter how sympathetic we are about the personal experience and family situation of the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron).
	These are difficult and complex decisions, and parents and LEAs agonise over them in the best interests of their children. Let us not allow them to become a political footballthey deserve better.

Richard Benyon: This has been a very interesting debate, and I commend Members on both sides of the House for their contributions. I shall deal with some of the points made by the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) in a moment.
	I want to talk about two schools in my constituency whose circumstances inform any debate on special schools or special educational needs. Mary Hare school for the deaf is a non-maintained special school with places funded by more than 100 local education authorities from around the country. It caters for some of the 20 per cent. of profoundly deaf children who cannot be educated in the mainstream. It is much appreciated and lauded by the Minister's Department in several ways. It has been invited to become a specialist trailblazer school; it tops the league under the Department's value-added table; and it has, in recent years, achieved training school status. Indeed, it has just had a 300,000 grant for a new performing arts centre. One can therefore tell that it is much appreciated by the Minister.
	Members will be able to tell that there is a big but coming. That but relates to the way in which the school has to deal with special educational needs tribunals. Even hard-core advocates of inclusion have always accepted that extreme cases of deafness and visual impairment are exceptions to the inclusion agenda and benefit from specialist school education. But the head teacher of Mary Hare school, Tony Shaw, spends 40 per cent. of his time preparing for and fighting special educational needs tribunals on behalf of pupils and parents. Last year, he won 17 out of 18 of those cases; the remaining one is being appealed at the High Court. This year, he is assisting 15 families appealing these tribunals.
	It is worth examining what is going on here. Unless schools take time to represent these families, in the vast majority of cases they do not have a prayer when they get to the tribunal. The tribunals follow a legal framework, which most parents cannot be qualified to fight. A tribunal requires copious details of a child's case, and the parents have to prove at length why the local education authority provision is inadequate. It requires an enormous amount of work and understanding of how the system operates.
	There is a prejudice in the educational establishment against special schools and it means that children suffer. The decision by Mary Hare school, like many others, to put its head above the parapet and take on what some hon. Members have described in the past as the inclusion police, was hard to make because it has been trying to build relationships over the years with local education authorities. However, by taking on the tribunals, it has secured a good education and the best prospects for many children. It has done that not only for the children whom it represents at the tribunals but for the other children at the school. It has managed to keep the school roll up, thus securing its future. As my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) said earlier, the LEAs are working to an agenda of inclusion that has been pushed in recent years, and it causes great unhappiness when cases go to tribunal.
	I shall briefly refer to another paradox for the Mary Hare school. The Under-Secretary cannot deal with it, but perhaps she can put some pressure on the Chancellor. In receiving the 300,000 grant for the new buildingfor which it is very gratefulthe school will probably also face a VAT bill of more than 400,000 for the same project. A maintained special school would not receive such a bill; it could claw back the VAT. That anomaly must be resolved. What the Government appear to give with one hand, they take away with the other.
	I want to consider another school in my constituency, the Castle school in Donnington. It is an LEA-maintained community special school, which encompasses the range of special needs. It is a uniquely wonderful place to visit. It has children with genuine problems and it faces an interesting challenge that enables me to be constructive about the future of inclusion. The school buildings are reaching the end of their natural life. It is on a site that is away from the centre of town and children have to be bussed to Newbury when they want to carry out other activities. It has successfully co-located its infants school with a mainstream school in the town. The decision that the school must make has to be sensitive to the passionate loyalty of parents, pupils, teachers and governors. However, it is moving towards deciding to co-locate the school with another secondary school in the LEA. I pay tribute to the way in which the school, the governors and the LEA have handled the matter. If it is done right, everybody wins.
	The co-location would be based on the model of Springfield school in Witney, which my hon. Friend the Member for Witney described, where inclusion can work to everybody's gain. A properly co-located school can be appropriate for different children. Some can share certain classes, whereas for others, it is not appropriate to share any classes. However, they can share facilities such as catering and sports facilities.
	Children in the mainstream school also benefit. My education was divorced entirely from that of those with special needsI expect that that applies to many in my generation. I went into adult life practically never having met a child with special needs. I believe that inclusion, when done properly and limited, is right for children for whom it is appropriate. In those circumstances, co-location is a way forward. We cannot hermetically seal children with special needs away from those in the mainstream.
	In short, I hope that the Government will hear the pleas of parents who know what is best for their children, and the pleas of special schools. I hope that they will also listen to the words of Baroness Warnock. This is an important debate, involving the most vulnerable people in our society. I commend the motion to the House.

Angela Smith: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this debate, which should have at its heart the experiences and needs of children, their parents and their carers. All too often, parents feel alienated from the very processes designed to support them. They frequently feel ignored or dismissed, or that their views are of the smallest importance when it comes to determining what support should be offered and how it should be organised. It is fair to say, however, that not every parent's experience is like that. Most children's needs are quickly identified, so that the appropriate support can be put in place. However, there are too many cases in which that just does not happen.
	When the delays start to occur, they are often accompanied by a feeling on the part of the parents that their views on their child's needs are being ignored. Indeed, it often seems as though the professionals respond to an assertive parent by digging in, by entrenching themselves in their position, and by weaving a web of dialogue around the parent. This makes things much worse for parents, who often have mixed feelings about the whole process anyway. Some parents feel uncertain about allowing their child to be labelled as different in any way. In that context, it is distressing for them to learn that the process itself is often complicated and fraught with tensions and disagreements. Time delays and cancelled appointments undermine confidence in the process, making parents feel that their child is just a name on numerous files, a faceless entity filed away somewhere for action at some future date.
	Only last week, I went to meet the parents of an autistic child in my constituency. They want their son to enjoy an extra year at primary school because of the failure to diagnose his autism at an early stage. They have the support of professionals such as the educational psychologist and the consultant community paediatrician. However, the local education authority's response to their request has not been particularly positive, and the matter will go before a panel meeting tomorrow. As far as Mr. and Mrs. Houghton are concerned, the whole process is tense and difficult, and it follows what they have described as a distant and bureaucratic relationship with the special educational needs service. To give an example of what that relationship has been like, I shall tell the House about an event that took place last week. When Mr. and Mrs. Houghton rang the LEA to ask about the date of the panel hearing, they were told quite categorically that it had not yet been determined. I phoned the LEA the following day to inquire about the case, and was given the date immediately. It is appalling that an MP can be given such information when it has been denied to the parents involved.
	I acknowledge, however, that there are no easy ways to improve the services provided to parents and children with special needs, but improve them we must. The key to improvement is surely to focus not on buildings, moratoriums and so on, but on the better co-ordination of services for children, and on putting parents at the heart of the process. The introduction of integrated children's services is one of the ways in which we can improve the work between professionals, their relationships with parents, and the service. I have already told professionals in Sheffield that, for me, the test of children's services will be how much SEN services improve, and how much less parents complain about it. That is the key for children's services.
	What provision do we need? In Sheffield, we have a spectrum of provision. We have special schools, as well as integrated resources in the mainstream. Children with a low incidence of need are fully integrated into the mainstream, and we also have an opt-out provision for children who need to be taken out of their mainstream school for a few short weeks and given intensive support. That is the way forward. There is nothing in the Government's policy about either closure or total inclusion. A spectrum of provision is the recommended way forward, and it is based on four principles.
	The first is collaboration between special schools and the mainstream, to ensure that expertise is there at every point in provision for all children. The second is flexible provision, which allows children to transfer from special to mainstream schools if necessary, and vice versa, with no delay. Thirdly, the system must give parents choice. Fourthly, as I have said before, it must be led by professionals working in schools who know best how to improve the service and introduce innovations.
	I consider the proposed moratorium totally inappropriate. We need flexibility. Some closures are necessary. In Sheffield two new schools are opening in September, after three old special schools have been rebuilt. Parents welcome that, and it has led to an expansion in the number of places available. More closures are in the pipeline, agreed to by parents because the schools are being rebuilt. I appeal to Members not to vote for a moratorium that would stop Sheffield getting its new schools.
	A further programme of closure and rebuilding is not appropriate. What is appropriate is for decisions on how provision should be shaped to be made locally. A nationally imposed moratorium would be an example of centralised control that could damage SEN education rather than improving it. I suggest that if there are problems with provision across the country, local government reform is what is needed. We should not have a go at SEN provision when the problem lies with authoritiessometimes Tory-controlledthat do not know how to handle relationships with parents and SEN professionals.

Several hon. Members: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The winding-up speeches must begin at 4.15 pm. Three Back Benchers are trying to catch my eye. Perhaps they will do the maths for themselves if they wish to be helpful to their colleagues.

Anne Milton: I will be brief, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	This has been a fascinating afternoon. I find it interesting that there is a fair amount of agreement in the House. I am a new Member, but I would love it if someone set out his or her ideas and then said, Hands up those who agree with this. I think we would turn out to be in agreement on many issues.
	One thing on which we definitely agree is that inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream schools is a worthy ideal, and I think that for many it is the best option. Inclusion of all children, however, is not the right idea. It is generating a huge amount of fear and mistrust among teachers at the moment: they do not feel that they will be able to cope. I have seen teachers in tears because they are desperate. They say, I went into mainstream education because that is what I feel I can do. I do not feel that I have the skills to meet the requirements of children with special needs.
	I think that there is a problem with perception. Labour Members seem to believe that a moratorium will somehow stop everything, that we are going to go backwards, and that we think inclusion is a bad idea. That is not the case. We are saying what a Labour Member said earlier: we are saying, Let us stop for a minute and take stock. This is a hugely complicated issue.
	My constituency contains some brilliant schools for children with special needs. Gosden House school deals with children with moderate learning difficulties. We also have Pond Meadow, which is to co-locate with a secondary school, and Thornchace, which is a very special school for girls with emotional and behavioural disorders. Many of the girls are looked after, many have been excluded from mainstream schools, and many have already failed in pupil referral units. That school faces closure, which is devastating for staff, pupils and parents, because they know that they have something special to give to very special girls, which is to be taken away from them.
	The local education authorities do not want prescriptive messages from Government. They think that they have to pursue inclusion with all their might, which is why we are seeing special schools close. Often, aspirational theory translates into poorly conceived practice and that is what we are seeing now.
	We have heard lots of talk of joined-up thinking and partnership working. It makes me so angry, because it does not necessarily translate into something that works on the ground. Ministers can say all the words they want, but what parents and children want to know is: is it working on the ground? A moratorium is the right answer because we need to take stock. There is too much uncertainty out there about how to meet the needs of children with special needs for us to continue. We need to say, Hang on a minute, what do we agree on, what is right? and examine the whole sector.

Philip Davies: I am happy to support my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) on this important subject, which I am delighted he has given us the opportunity to debate. It has been a very interesting debate. We nearly all agree that there is a problemI was a bit concerned that the Minister started off by saying that there is not a problem. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have said that there   are problemseven Labour Members have highlighted them.
	The Government cannot have it both ways. They say that there is not a problem and then, when people say that there is, they say that it is not their problem, but local authorities'. It would be worth while for the Government to acknowledge that there is a problem. I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing the matter to the House's attention.
	I may be able to be constructive for the Government in some respects. There are local authorities that want to improve their provision for special needs but they need the Government's help. Bradford council has some innovative and ambitious plans to improve special needs education and to increase the number of special schools in the district, but it needs the Government's help. I hope that the Minister will look favourably upon Bradford council when it requires some help to improve provision in its area.
	The council's plans involve opening three new secondary special schools. It also has ambitious plans to introduce three new primary special schools. That is being funded from the council's own resources because it sees it as a priority. It wants to improve the available provision. I hope that the Government will help it to deliver that.
	All those schools will be co-located with other schools. My hon. Friends the Members for Newbury (Mr. Benyon) and for Witney pointed out that the model of co-locating a special school with a mainstream school can work. That is what Bradford council intends to do.
	There are some areas where the Government could help local authorities. One is through the funding of therapies, including speech and language therapy and physiotherapy, which are grossly underfunded in the Bradford district. Demand is higher than supply and the council needs about 420,000 to meet that demand. I hope that the Government will help it with that provision, which is so needed in the Bradford district.
	There is a gap between what is offered to people while they are at special schools and what is offered when they leave. Post-school life, little appears to be done; there is a dearth of provision and facilities both for the people leaving and for their carers or parents. Some capital and revenue funding to help with that would be worth while and meet a real need.
	What I have in mind is co-located living and training accommodation. People could be accommodated and trained there both while they are at school and after they finish school. That would give them the independence that they crave but currently do not possess.
	My concern is that the Government's agenda involves trying to force children into mainstream schools in cases where doing so is not appropriate. I do not know what led to that idea. My fear is that this agenda is based not on what is in the best interests of the childrenof the people who need these facilitiesbut on forcing people into mainstream schools as part of a politically correct process of social engineering. The idea seems to be that, so long as everybody gets the same education, that is fine. However, what people want is diversity in education. Children should go to the school that is right for them.
	It is important that people understand that where co-location takes place, the children are not necessarily educated together. Although they might be integrated socially, they are not mixed with others in a mainstream education setting. They are not totally segregated, but they are not forced into participating in lessons that would be totally inappropriate for them. Such participation would be inappropriate not only for them, but for the other children in the mainstream school.
	The Government can help by providing extra special needs places throughout the country and particularly in the Bradford district. We have heard today from Members in all parts of the House that there is a problem. I hope that the Government will acknowledge that fact, and that they do have a role to play in helping local authorities to develop the best possible strategies. Bradford councilConservative-ledhas some innovative and ambitious plans, and I hope that the Government will support its efforts to increase special needs provision.

Mark Hoban: I begin by congratulating those Members who have taken part in this excellent debate, with Members drawing on their constituency experience of special education. In particular, I want to congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper), for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Evennett), for Newbury (Mr. Benyon), for Guildford (Anne Milton), and for Shipley (Philip Davies). My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley has perhaps presented the Government with a challenge. If they are saying that there is no bias in favour of inclusionthat there is no bias against special schoolsthey should be prepared to look at Bradford council's plan to expand the number of places in special schools at both primary and secondary level. That will be a test of their special educational needs policy.
	The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), the former Chairman of the Education and Skills Committee, was right to suggest that the first topic for the re-formed Committee should be special educational needs. We also heard from the hon. Members for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson), and for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), who is my constituency neighbour, as well as from the hon. Members for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber), for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith), and for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). They demonstrated that the problems that we face span all parts of our nation.
	I want to tackle three fundamental propositions that are at the heart of this debate. First, children with special educational needs require a proper assessment to establish how much additional support and help is needed to enable them to realise their full potential. Secondly, although for many children such support can come in the form of a mainstream school place, it is not the answer for every child. Parents need choice, as the hon. Member for Amber Valley said. Thirdly, if we are to give children the right support, it is vital that no options be closed to them.
	Let us consider first the need for a proper assessment of children's needs, and in particular the statementing process. As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough pointed out, the statementing process is far from perfect. Many parents do not consider it fair. A recent survey by the Down's Syndrome Association pointed out that many local education authorities
	are accused by parents of cynically manipulating the statementing process to deny adequate support to all but the most vocal.
	The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) referred to the adversarial nature of the process. Parents are pitted against LEAs and expensive advisers are employed by both sides, so that parents can argue the case for the support that their children need.
	Many parents believe that the level of provision is not just about meeting the child's needs, but about responding to the pressures on LEA budgets. A recent report by PACEParents Autism Campaign for Educationnoted:
	Parents' perception of their LEA was generally negative.
	Many parents expressed concerns about their LEA's competence and about the fact that LEAs were less concerned with the education of their children than with budgets. The conflict of interest within LEAsbetween their role as funder of special education and their role as assessor of needshas led many parents to doubt the reliability with which authorities go about the statementing process.
	I was pleased to hear that the hon. Gentleman agrees with us that we should look further into the possibility of having independent assessment of special educational needs. When parents look around the country, they see huge variations in the proportion of children statemented in different LEAs. In Nottinghamshire, only 1 per cent. of children are statemented, while in Halton it is 4.6 per cent. How can parents have confidence in a system that produces such variable outcomes across the country? Despite parents' frustration with statementing, they also see it as vital, for it establishes a guarantee of entitlement, without which they fear that their child's support could be taken away at a moment's notice. We need to increase parents' trust in the process.
	It is not just parents who find statementing to be an unsatisfactory process. County councillors have also expressed their concern that the statementing process is too bureaucratic. It is time consuming and frustrating for them, as well as for parents. Until trust in the statementing process is established, parents will also see it as a battle to get the best resources for their childrenan adversarial system that is time consuming and wasteful, yet vital if they are to get the guarantee of help that they need.
	If we are to ensure that children achieve their full potential, we must ensure that the support that they get is tailored to their needs. There is a consensus across the House about the importance of early intervention. I have seen for myself the excellent work that the Elizabeth Foundation does with young children born with a hearing impairment. It tries to support children at an early age so that they can continue in full-time mainstream schools rather than have to go to a school for the deaf or a unit for children with hearing impairment.
	Earlier this year, I went to the Battledown early years centre, which was faced with closure by the Lib-Lab alliance on Gloucestershire county councilthe same people who proposed to close two moderate learning difficulties schools in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean. Battledown did everything that we ask from such a centre: it assessed the needs of children early and provided them with the support intervention that they needed so that, where possible, they could go to a mainstream school. Without that early assessment and intervention, those children were being set up to fail in mainstream schools. Thankfully, in that case, the centre was reprieved by the adjudicator. If we believe in early intervention, we cannot afford to lose centres such as Battledown, which help to tackle special needs when children are young.
	Members on both sides of the House have argued that it is wrong to adopt a doctrinaire approach either that only mainstream is right or that only special schools are right. We need to get the provision right for all children. I fear that what we have seen over recent years is a dogmatic belief in the importance of inclusion. Yet the evidence tells us that mainstream does not always benefit all children. The Ofsted report Special educational needs and disability: towards inclusive schools found:
	Few schools evaluate their provision for pupils with SEN systematically so that they establish how effective the provision is . . . A minority of mainstream schools meet special educational needs very well . . . The teaching seen of pupils with SEN was of varying quality.
	Clearly, there is an issue about the quality of educational provision for children with special educational needs in mainstream schools.
	Whenever I visit special schools, I meet children who have been written off in mainstream schools, but who are flourishing, thanks to the expertise and care available in special schools. I visited the Mary Hare grammar school for the deaf in Newbury, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury referred, earlier this year. I met a young man there who had been written off as a failure by his mainstream school. He was stuck at the back of class and could not participate in lessons, but he is now heading off to university because of the expertise and skills of the Mary Hare school. Special schools are very important. Indeed, the Mary Hare school is also a training centre for teachers seeking a post-graduate qualification in teaching the deaf. If we lose those schools, we lose that expertise, and the opportunity to share it with other schools.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Witney used two statistics in his speech to illustrate how mainstream schools do not always work. He said that a child with a statement is far more likely to be excluded from school than one without, and that many more children with statements switch from mainstream education to special schools than the other way around.
	I make those points not to argue that inclusion is invariably wrong, because it is not. Inclusion can be right and it can work, but not always. Alternative provision needs to be available, so that children can get the support that they need. We must be able to maintain choice. Parents should be able to decide, where appropriate, whether a child with special educational needs should attend a mainstream or a special school. Closing special schools removes that choice.
	That choice is also constrained by the presumption in favour of mainstream in the Education Act 2001. I refer again to the Department's guidance on this matter. My hon. Friend mentioned it before, but the House needs to remember that it has an impact on what happens in LEAs and on how they respond to the needs of children with SEN.

Angela Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mark Hoban: No, as the hon. Lady spoke earlier. Time is short and many points arose in the debate that remain to be covered.
	The Department published the document Inclusive Schooling in November 2001. It states that the starting point is always that children who have statements will receive mainstream education. That sets the direction of travel for LEAs, which make mainstream education the first choice for parents and often limit the information available to them about special schools. As a result, parental choice in the matter is restricted.
	Why do parents want that choice? For some, the principle is important, but other parents' experiences of mainstream education have been unsatisfactory. In its brief for today's debate, the Special Educational Consortium pointed out that the mainstream does not offer a ready welcome to a child or understand a child's impairments and educational needs. It says that parents have difficulty in securing appropriate provision in mainstream schools, and that there are problems with getting appropriate support from other sources.
	Parents choose special schools because they believe that they can meet their children's needs better than mainstream schools. Yet they are often under pressure to accept a place in a mainstream school because that is what the legislation and the guidance say that they should be offered.
	Most under threat are the choices available for parents of children with moderate learning difficulties. The Government recognise that special schools have a role for children with a severe impairment, but there is a lot of concern about the fate of schools dealing with moderate learning difficulties. As my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean pointed out, two MLD schools were closed in Gloucestershire. My hon. Friend the Member for Witney challenged the Minister for Schools at the start of the debate about the role and future of MLD schools. He asked her directly for her view of what the future held for such schools, but she ducked the question and hid in generalities.
	The Minister's response made it clear that MLD schools have little future under this Government, as the terms of reference for the audit of special schools also indicate. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State, when she responds to the debate, will correct that impression, and that she will give parents of children attending schools specialising in moderate learning difficulties an assurance that their future is safe under this Government.
	We also need to understand what help is available, and what is effective. The Opposition believe that we need a review of special educational needs provision to ensure that children's needs are met. In the meantime, we must ensure that there is a moratorium on the closure of special schools. Those schools need to remain open while the review is conducted. Until we clear up the uncertainty and understand what is happening in the sector, we cannot move forward with the closure of special schools.
	The debate presents us with a real choice. Do we listen to the concerns of parents, teachers and children in special schools that they are being denied the ability to choose between mainstream and special schools? I believe that supporting the motion will send out a clear message to parents, children and teachers that we care about the education available to children and believe that there is a proper role for special schools. In contrast, the Government are in danger of letting down children with special educational needs.

Maria Eagle: It is a pleasure to respond to the debate and to follow the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban). I am not sure how much else we will agree on, but I agree that this has been an excellent debate. I very much welcome the interest of all hon. Members who have participated today. I congratulate the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) on raising this important subject, which I should be happy to talk about as often as the House wishes.
	The Government have a commitment to improve the life chances of disabled people and to ensure that the enormous extension of disability civil rights legislation that we have implemented during the past eight years results in real improvements in outcomes for disabled people. That commitment extends to educational opportunity and to disabled children, as well as to disabled adults, as it clearly should.
	We all know that a good education is key to enhancing life chances, and the Government have recognised that by extending to education the operation of the right for disabled people not to be discriminated against on the grounds of their disabilitysomething that the original Disability Discrimination Act 1995 did not do. That is the purpose of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001. It is not, and was not intended to be, some kind of lurch into political correctnessa phrase to which the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) unfortunately referred in his remarks.
	The 2001 Act is intended to provide a way to deal with the fact that society is increasingly realising the importance of not writing people off, and ensuring that all our citizens have the opportunity to develop to their full potential and to participate in all aspects of life. For disabled children, society has come to realiseit did not always do so in the pastthat we must aspire for them as much as we do for any children, that we must nurture their potential and ambition and that we must remove the physical and attitudinal barriers that still too often get in the way of their being the best that they can be and participating fully in all aspects of life in our society.
	That is the context in which we hold our debate today, and I hope that the hon. Member for Witney and I can agree about that. We are asking how, not whether, we can do the best that we can to support disabled children. I welcome this development; it is big a change in society's attitudes to disability over those displayed in previous decades. It is something that we as a nation should be proud of, and we should be trying to improve on it.
	The hon. Gentleman raised some specific issues, particularly in relation to schools and inclusion. Before I deal with those points and do my best in the time available to deal with some points made by other hon. Members, I should reiterate the context in which we are taking such action. Progress has been made. According to Ofsted, between 2000 and 2003, the proportion of children with special educational needs judged to be making good progress grew from 54 to 73 per cent. in primary schools and from 43 to 71 per cent. in secondary schools. I doubt whether we could identify any other period when such rapid and significant improvements have been made by such children.
	We should all welcome those improvements, which are the result of sustained focus, sustained action and increased resources being put into the sector in recognition of the importance of improving outcomes for those children. The Government have been responsible for some of that, but local education is organised locally, and many local education authorities and dedicated people in localities have also been responsible for making such progress.
	The hon. Gentleman accepts that progress has been made. He said so in a debate in Westminster Hall last year. Although he was not concentrating on that aspect today, I am glad that he has acknowledged it. He is nodding now, which is good. He says that the Government's policy is one of inclusion at any cost and that, as a result, special schools are being closed. The Government's policy is one not of inclusion at any cost, but of choice for parents, so that they can choose either mainstream education where they want it and where it is appropriatemany of them make that choice, and it is appropriateor specialist provision where that is more suitable.
	It is categorically not the Government's policy to close special schools and enforce inclusion whether or not it is right for the individual child. Indeed, since the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 Ministers have not had the power to make decisions on school reorganisations and closures; those decisions are made locally. Nor was there any opposition from the Conservatives to devolving that responsibility to localities at the time. Furthermore, figures show that the rate of closure of special schools has halved since the change was made. Between 1986 and 1997, some 234 special schools closed. I gently remind the Opposition that it was their Ministers who made those decisions. Since 1997, some 93 special schools have closed, but on the basis of local decisions.
	Many Members have powerfully pointed out that parents are concerned about the closure of any local school, but particularly special schools, which parents often feel they want to defend because they know and understand the quality of the provision there. I fully understand those concerns but make two points in response. First, local authorities have a duty to secure sufficient schools for the children in their area and must have particular regard to the need for SEN provision. When setting out how they will undertake that provision, they must listen to the views of parents. When closure is proposed, consultation with parents must occur. If there is a dispute, an independent adjudicator makes the decision. Some Members have pointed out that that process sometimes results in a change, and many Members will be aware of cases where plans have changed, sometimes out of all recognition, as a result of the consultation process.
	That is not to argue, and I do not, that the process always results in the outcome that parents want. In Wandsworth, to refer to a recent example, many parents were dissatisfied with the outcome of the process, so I do not argue that it always results in perfection. Nor do I argue that SEN provision is perfect, but it is better than it was and we are determined to improve it.
	The hon. Gentleman asked for a moratorium on closures, as did many of his hon. Friends. That might look good in a speech or a press release but I have major doubts as to its efficacy. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State said in her opening remarks that the hon. Gentleman was from the progressive left of the Conservative party. I think I would describe him as being from the statist left because he is actually arguing for the re-nationalisation of decision making on school reorganisation. He will be going into the leadership contest with the battle cry, The civil servant in Whitehall knows best. I wish him luck in his quest. He is a brave man.
	A moratorium would require primary legislation, so it will not be a swift option. Such a move would blight many excellent reorganisations, whether or not there was local controversy, for an indeterminate length of time.

David Cameron: The hon. Lady makes me intervene. She says that I pretend that civil servants in Whitehall know best. Is not she aware that her guidance, Inclusive Schooling, which she has not mentioned, states:
	This guidance . . . must not be ignored?
	That is the man in Whitehall. The guidance also states:
	The starting point is always that children who have statements will receive mainstream education.
	That guidance is causing the problem, so why will not she withdraw it?

Maria Eagle: I appear to have hit a raw nerve. I was considering the hon. Gentleman's policy of a moratorium, which would be centrally imposed and against the wishes of many local authorities. The hon. Member for Shipley talked about collocation of schools, as did the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon), but that could not be done if there were a moratorium. The House and the Government would be imposing the moratorium from the centre, so that prescription would not be as efficacious as the hon. Member for Witney appears to think.
	The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of the national audit of low incident SEN support services and provision. He asked in particular why the audit was not wider in scope, a point made by several Members, including the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey). There has been an exhaustive review of special schools, which reported as recently as March 2003. The findings of that independent working group were incorporated in our strategy for SEN, Removing Barriers to Achievement, published a year later, following extensive consultation. In my previous role in the Government, I was a signatory to that document. There has been extensive consultation before and since with teachers, schools, pupils, parents, local authorities, the voluntary sector and others, although my officials tell me that Conservative Members did not contribute. Perhaps they should have done, because we could then have heard some of their ideas at the time at which the review for which they now call was actually going on.
	The Audit Commission raised its views on statementing and the success, or otherwise, of special education in its 2002 report. Work has been ongoing, so I am glad that the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats have decided that it is about time that we had a review, albeit belatedly. However, work has been going on over the years and we have come up with our strategy, which we are now implementing.
	We can all agree that it is a priority to ensure that all children reach their full potential and that the education system is a key determinant of our success in reaching such a goal. We can all agree that there is an emerging consensus that disabled children must have the same expectation of success and the same aspirations to develop to their full potential as any other children. If we do not ensure that that happens, we will be failing those people as a nation. We want them to take their rightful place in our society as the valuable citizens we all know them to be.
	The Government are investing substantial additional resources in educationsome 1,300 extra per pupil, or a 45 per cent. increase in real terms between 1998 and 2008. We want things to work for disabled children just as much as for their non-disabled peers. We are determined to ensure that the progress identified by Ofsted continues, so I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will support us in that endeavour.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	The House divided: Ayes 176, Noes 349.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House believes that special schools play a vital role in meeting the needs of children with learning difficulties, acknowledges that parents may want mainstream or special schools for their children and notes that under the current statutory framework they have the right to express a preference for either; welcomes the Government's commitment to improving the range and quality of provision for children with special educational needs through its special educational needs strategy, Removing Barriers to Achievement, which followed wide consultation and a separate review of the role of special schools; rejects the call for further reviews and a moratorium on closures of special schools, since this would stifle reorganisation of local provision to meet changing patterns of need and halt the development of effective collaboration between mainstream and special schools; welcomes the Government's audit of provision for low incidence needs since it will contribute to more effective planning; and welcomes its determination to ensure that all children with SEN are able to realise their potential, wherever they are taught.

Electoral Integrity

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Speaker has chosen the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Oliver Heald: I beg to move,
	That this House believes that the Government should rule out future use of all-postal voting and that any pilot schemes should be subject to explicit parliamentary ratification; regrets the unwillingness of the Government to adopt in mainland Britain the tried and tested Northern Ireland system of individual voter registration; condemns the Government's constitutional changes which have undermined democratic accountability, such as the introduction of proportional representation; and further believes that urgent steps are needed to restore public confidence and integrity in the electoral system and to increase the accountability of government.
	The United Kingdom has held a reputation[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. May I say to hon. Members who want to pursue conversations that this is not in order? We are trying to proceed with the debate. May I please have quiet in the House?

Oliver Heald: The United Kingdom has traditionally held a reputation as a beacon of democracy and fair play, the mother of Parliaments. We have led the way in building foundations for democracy across the world. We have tended as a country to occupy the moral high ground and even to lecture other parts of the world on democracy. But the integrity of our own recent general election was dependent on overseas observers for the first time, from places like Serbia and the Ukraine.
	Although Ministers insist that there was no widespread evidence of systematic election fraud, public perception has changed over recent months and years. It is clear that the Government's modernisation programme in this area has resulted in a collapse in public confidence and compromised the perceived integrity of the British electoral system. As the right hon. and hon. Members who are shaking their heads will know, a MORI poll in March this year found that 54 per cent. of the public think that postal voting has made it easier to commit election fraud, and an even higher proportion are concerned about fraud with electronic voting.
	After the 2003 local election all-postal voting pilots, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives warned the then Minister, the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford):
	there is increasing concern about electoral fraud . . . we consider that the current position runs the risk of the whole electoral process being discredited. Confusion already exists among electoral practitioners and election agents, and a major scandal could bring representative democracy into disrepute.
	The Government simply ignored its strongly worded warnings.
	In the June 2004 elections, the Government imposed widespread all-postal voting in the face of cross-party and Electoral Commission opposition, choosing pilot regions on the basis of partisan advantage. The elections descended into such administrative chaos that even in the Deputy Prime Minister's own area, Hull, the election court had to annul a decision.
	A judge recently highlighted the inherent risks in the current rules on postal voting, attacking Ministers for being in a state of not simple complacency, but denial:
	that there are no systems to deal realistically with fraud . . . would disgrace a banana republic.
	New Labour should reflect carefully on those comments.
	In 2004, the Labour party official postal voting handbook called for Labour activists to build their own ballot boxes to take to voters' doors:
	You could even have a ballot box for people to put their votes in which you can then deliver to the returning officer before close of poll. If your volunteers are wearing Labour stickers or rosettes it is unlikely that supporters of other parties will give you their votes.
	Public confidence in the electoral system continued to decline in the 2005 election, as evidenced by the extraordinary scenes in Bethnal Green and Bow. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Galloway) has told me that he is on tour in the north of England and cannot speak in this debate, but when he gave evidence to the London Assembly, he discussed
	a major operation to bloat the electoral register with non-existent electors as part of a dirty tricks operation,
	and accused new Labour of
	ruthlessly using bullying, blackmail, postal votes operationsall the black arts you could imagine.

Nigel Evans: At least 100 of my constituents wish they had had postal votes, because they were refused access to a polling station because of huge queues and insufficient clerks to cope with demand. I have made representations to Sam Younger to ensure that local authorities have extra people available to allocate to areas of heavy demand. Does he believe that people like to go to polling stations to vote, which is a view that I have heard expressed on the doorstep?

Oliver Heald: It is a serious matter if people queue up around the block but cannot vote. I hope that the Electoral Commission examines that issue and takes account of my hon. Friend's idea.
	The Government's decision to introduce the long-delayed electoral administration Bill is welcome. I also welcome the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister has been stripped of his responsibility for elections and postal voting, which is a long overdue vote of no confidence. Early-day motion 202 makes it clear that many hon. Members on both sides of the House are heaving a huge sigh of relief that he is no longer involved.
	Although we support many of the provisions in the recent consultation paper, the proposed legislation does not go far enough.

David Heath: I do not want the hon. Gentleman to move too far away from his friend, the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Galloway). When he spoke to that hon. Gentleman, did he discuss the fact that, uniquely in modern history, he was elected with the support of only 18.4 per cent. of the electorate in his constituency? Does the hon. Gentleman believe that that is a genuine reflection of the political views of the people of Bethnal Green and Bow?

Oliver Heald: That is the sort of point that one might wish to address in a serious way had it come from any other part of the House, but it is rich coming from the Liberal Democrats, who believe in proportional representation, which can lead to extremist parties getting elected with only 5 per cent. of the vote.
	Forced all-postal voting has been condemned by the Electoral Commission in two major reports and the public have no confidence in it. Is the Minister really unable to make a commitment to the effect that we have seen the end of it? Many Members of all parties are old-fashioned enough to think that there is something special about the traditional method of voting using the properly controlled polling station and the ballot box, and that if somebody wishes to use postal voting, that should be their choice, not something that is forced upon them. Even those who support it want it to be properly controlled.
	Conservative Members also have concerns about the future use of other pilot methods, including remote electronic voting. We believe that the technology for e-voting is very insecure and that all the problems that one gets with postal votes would apply to the issuing of PIN numbers. One would end up with a double danger, not just a single one.

Stephen McCabe: Given the hon. Gentleman's concerns about postal voting, how many votes does he calculate the Tory party secured during the general election as a direct result of the mailshots from the Leader of the Opposition requesting individuals to fill in a postal ballot form, and, if they could not do it themselves, to find a friend to do it? Does he think that is a strange strategy to employ in relation to a system to which he is so opposed?

Oliver Heald: It would be surprising had we not said consistently, from the beginning, that we are not against postal votingwe are against ill-regulated postal voting that is not properly controlled. That is why today, as before, we propose that there should be proper safeguards, which even now the Government are not prepared to introduce.

Julie Kirkbride: One would have thought that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Steve McCabe) would be much more concerned about representing a local authority area that was described as a banana republic in the recent judge's report on the activities that had taken place.
	I am encouraged by our stand on how we want the process tightened. Does my hon. Friend have more to say about the electoral court, which will look at some of the general election results with regard to postal voting fraud? What does he think we should do about that?

Oliver Heald: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I cannot make a close examination of those cases at present because of the sub judice rules, which we all respect in this place. However, there is no doubt that there are considerable risks and that judges have made serious condemnations of how the Government have handled the whole matter.
	Let me say a few words about pilot schemes. It has got to the point where pilot schemes are becoming the norm in some elections, and greater scrutiny is required. The law needs to be amended so that secondary legislation is required to ratify a pilot scheme. It is not acceptable that powers that were originally intended to allow for trial and experimentation in very tight circumstances should now be used to make near-permanent changes to the system.
	It is not only the postal voting system that is unsafe and inadequate. Perhaps most important, the registers on which we depend for our system are in a poor state. Last year, a Daily Mail investigation found that the paper could register a fictitious student called Gus Troobev, an anagram of bogus voter on 31 electoral registers in a few hours. In Cheadle, one of the most marginal constituencies in Britain, the paper was able to obtain nine further bogus votes. The Conservative candidate and former Member of Parliament, Stephen Day, had to contact Stockport's Liberal Democrat council, after obtaining the names from the Daily Mail, so that they could be removed from the register.
	A journalist from The Sunday Telegraph was able to apply for the postal ballot papers of 36 voters to be sent to one address. The Evening Standard was able to apply for postal votes diverted to bogus addresses simply by using an application form from the internet. A Sky News investigation managed falsely to obtain multiple votes in two constituencies with no proof of identity and, more than a year ago, Marion Roe, who was then a Member of Parliament, produced evidence in a debate in Westminster Hall that electoral registers were up to 10 per cent. inaccurate, containing thousands of names of voters who were not truly entitled to vote.
	Democratic legitimacy derives from individual citizens' belief that their system is fair and secure. Although the Government's proposals to collect signatures and dates of birth would be an improvement, there remains no independent verification of the existence of those on the electoral register.

Clive Betts: The hon. Gentleman criticises the electoral process in this country. We have recently had the biggest test of electoral opinion through a general election, yet so far he has given the House only one example, from the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Galloway), of alleged irregularities in that constituency. If the problem is so widespread, I presume that he can give us a list of other constituencies about which he has anxieties. Has the Conservative party lodged an election petition against the result in any constituency?

Oliver Heald: I cannot go into the details of electoral petitions any more than the hon. Gentleman, because of the rules of this place. If he is satisfied that there is no risk, given the events in the local elections of 2004, he is one of a small number of people.

Andrew Robathan: I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) has left to answer his telephone, because when the Birmingham scandal was announced by the judge, Richard Mawtrey, the right hon. Gentleman made a statement. He said that, when individual registration was introduced in Northern Ireland, the register got smaller. Why did he believe that there were fewer people than before on the register in Northern Ireland under an individual registration system? I am glad that he has now finished his telephone call.

Oliver Heald: My hon. Friend gets to the nub of an important point. The Northern Ireland Office stated:
	the Government is satisfied that these measures have been extremely successful in substantially improving the accuracy of the electoral register in Northern Ireland.
	Yet right hon. Members tried to suggest that there was something wrong with what happened in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland now has an honest register.

Eric Pickles: Does my hon. Friend accept that false entries on the electoral register are not made simply to influence membership here or on councils or to entertain tabloid journalists, since registration is a prerequisite of establishing a credit rating? The problem goes far wider than electoral fraud.

Oliver Heald: That is true. Examples of individuals who were not entitled to vote came up during the election campaign, but they had tried to register not in order to vote but in order to apply for credit. I do not mind if they want a platinum card, but I mind that the risk exists.
	Recently, The Peoplethat great organconducted an analysis of the electoral roll. It uncovered names such as Donald Duck and Jesus H. Christ. Perhaps they are genuine, but I suspect that the entries at a student address in Southampton, including Hooty McBoob and Gailord Focker, while not evidence of sinister malpractice, are not. One does suspect that these people do not exist.
	Mainland Britain needs the Northern Ireland system of individual registration. In the Province, voters need to provide a signature, a date of birth and a national insurance number to register. The national insurance number is used to check that the elector exists. Such identifiers are then used to verify postal votes. Ministers were initially reluctant to use national insurance numbers, but there was considerable debate on the issue in the other place. I pay tribute to my noble Friend Lord Glentoran in that regard. The Minister in the other place, Lord Williams of Mostynwhom we all miss and who was a very good spokesman for Labour in the other placeaccepted the argument that there was no independent method of verification. He insisted that national insurance numbers should be used, which was the right thing to do.

Alan Whitehead: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the system has suddenly become as he is describing it, or that it has always been that way? In fact, the method of registration has been as it now is since the Ballot Act 1872. Is he suggesting that the proposed system would fundamentally change a system that has always been subject to the problems that he has outlined, or does he believe that these problems have suddenly started to occur in the past two years?

Oliver Heald: It is hard to tell whether the situation has got worse or whether it has always been bad, but that is not the point. The point is that, if the Government are going to introduce a system of mass postal voting and want to leave open the option of all-postal voting, as the Minister does, we must have a register on which we can rely. At the moment, we do not have one, which is why we want to implement certain changes.

Several hon. Members: rose

Oliver Heald: I want to make some progress.
	If we adopted the Northern Ireland system in this country, we would have a much more effective control. Furthermore, non-UK voters should have to provide proof of citizenship. Points have been made about asylum seekers and other people from overseas who live in our country, but we must do something to tackle the problem of people who sign up to the register simply for consumer credit purposes when they are not entitled to vote.
	If we had a tighter system of registration, we would feel much more confident in the electoral system. The general election also brought into focus wider problems in the electoral system.

Bill Wiggin: My hon. Friend touched on the subject of people who are entitled to vote in European elections finding themselves with polling cards at the general election. That caused those people great discomfort, because they felt that the Government and the local authority should not encourage them to vote in that way. My local authority conducted compulsory postal voting for the local elections, and a great number of my constituents wanted to know why there could not be ballot boxes as well. Will my hon. Friend say something about that?

Oliver Heald: I believe that it is a fundamental right to be able to choose to vote in the traditional way.
	At the general election, the Conservative party scored more votes than Labour in England, but won 93 fewer seats, but that is not an argument for proportional representation, as The Independent has claimed. The use of PR in Britain has already undermined democratic accountability, without bringing about any increase in electoral turnout. It also prevents voters from removing an Administration, since it creates perpetual coalition Government. An unpopular Administration can be kept in office by a minor party, despite the desire of the people to kick the rascals out.
	Proportional representation also leads to a highly disproportionate relationship between the number of votes cast and the share of Executive power, by making minority parties the power brokers in Government. It also destroys the constituency link between the elected representative and their voters. Under first past the post, each voter can identify the person responsible for looking after their interests. Under PR systems, either constituencies are massive, with multiple members, or there is a group of representatives selected from a party list, accountable primarily to their political party. PR systems can allow candidates to be elected with as little as 5 to 8 per cent. of the vote, opening the door to extremists. A ridiculous situation can arise in which the most popular local politician is not elected and no one's vote counts for anything, because every vote is simply a mandate for negotiation.

Mark Tami: I agree with everything the hon. Gentleman said about PR, but he obviously wants to put more obstacles in the way of participation in voting. Does he accept that we must do something about the hundreds of thousands of people who are not on the register? Should we not encourage them to get on it?

Oliver Heald: I am in favour of proper campaigns to ensure that as many people as possible who are entitled to vote register to do so. If the changes that I suggest were introduced, it might be a good thing for an extra effort to be made to find those people and ensure that they register. It might even be a good idea to canvass twice during the year. What I do not accept is that people who are not entitled to vote should be able to register. It is completely unacceptable for registers to be inaccurate by as much as 10 per cent.
	In the 2005 general election, across England, the average electorate in constituencies that elected Labour MPs was 67,500, while in Conservative constituencies the figure was 73,000. Boundary Commission regulations should be amended to ensure that maintaining an equal quota has primacy over other considerations, and they should allow county boundaries to be crossed. There should be more up-to-date information about the size of electorates towards the end of the boundary review process to avoid the drawing up of constituencies on the basis of data from the start of the review that subsequently becomes out-of-date. That would be a fairer system, as it would ensure that each elector had the same level of parliamentary representation.

Andrew Turner: That is an important point. Does my hon. Friend agree, however, that the standard quota should extend not just across England but across the United Kingdom? Is he aware that, of the 10 largest seats in this Parliament, all are in England and all but two are represented by Conservative Members, whereas, of the 10 smallest seats, none is in England and none is represented by a Conservative?

Oliver Heald: I am aware of that and I agree that we should have a quota that is fair and equal across the United Kingdom, although in the Isle of Wight and one or two other constituencies where it is geographically difficult to achieve an exact electoral quota, special arrangements may be needed.

Andrew Love: In my constituency, just under 10,000 electors are missing from the census, and 6,000 have disappeared over the past six years. Is that not a major contributory factor in the difference in size between electorates? Does the hon. Gentleman accept that conducting two canvasses rather than one is simply not adequate to the need in that context?

Oliver Heald: I think the hon. Gentleman and I agree that we need a much more active campaign to ensure that people who are entitled to vote are registered to do so. What is not acceptable is a situation in which, typically, there are inner-city seats with 51,000 electors, and county and rural areas where the average is 73,000 or 74,000. That is not equality between electors. Each elector should have the same level of parliamentary representation.
	It has become clear that the Government's obsession with electoral modernisation has compromised Britain's traditional reputation for free and fair elections, and undermined the integrity of the system and public confidence in it. We were proud in this country to put behind us the electoral practices in the rotten boroughs of the 18th and 19th centuriesthe intimidation, fraud and risk. I for one would be very sad, and I am sure that this view is shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House, if that became the hallmark of the 21st century. That is why it is time for the Government to stop fiddling with our constitution for partisan advantage. It is time to protect people's right to vote in person and in secret. It is time to restore confidence, integrity and accountability to British democracy.

Harriet Harman: I beg to move, To leave out from House to end, and insert:
	believes that the General and local elections were safe and secure, and produced results that were fair and accurate; recognises that public confidence in the electoral process is paramount; and believes that the Government's constitutional changes have strengthened democratic accountability, bringing our institutions closer to the people.
	Although I regret the tone of the speech of the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) and take issue with many of the swingeing, unsupported and unsubstantiated assertions that he made, I welcome the subject that the Opposition have chosen for today's debate. It is timely, coming barely a month after the general election, and it is an opportunity for me to set out our approach. We will draw on the great experience in the House and beyond. We will be guided by the principles that I believe we all share. We will found our proposals on evidence and proceed by way of consultation.

John Hemming: You say that you will found your proposalsI am sorry. She says that

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Although I think that the hon. Gentleman is just getting to the point, he should be referring to the right hon. and learned Lady.

John Hemming: The right hon. and learned Lady says that she will found her proposals on evidence, but the Government do not collect the evidence that is necessary to identify a problem. People get disfranchised because they have a postal vote that they do not receive, they turn up to vote on the day of the election and are told by the presiding officer that they have to go away and are not entitled to vote. No record is kept of that. The Government keep no record of how many times that has happened, as I learned after I tabled a written question. There is an underlying problem when the Government are not collecting the evidence in the first instance.

Harriet Harman: I welcome the comments and information, drawn from the hon. Gentleman's own experience, that he has already given us. We are genuinely interested in hearing what the concerns are and hearing evidence. We are taking action and consulting on proposals that we hope will deal with those matters. It is true that not enough evidence is routinely collected about the problems in the system. I accept that point.

Roger Godsiff: Is the Minister aware that, in Birmingham at the last general election, 185 people turned up at the 90 polling stations in the city saying that they wished to vote and were told that they were on the postal vote list? Is she also aware that the chief returning officer of Birmingham city council instructed her staff at the polling stations to keep a list of all those people? I am surprised that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) did not know that, seeing that his administration was running the city council during the elections.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes an important point and we must consider all those issues. I look forward to hearing speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the House. As I said, we will found our proposals on evidence, wherever we receive it, and proceed by way of consultation. Our objectives are to ensure that we take action to tackle the scandal of the possibly millions of people who are entitled to be on the electoral register but are not and so are not able to vote; to ensure that we will have more secure voting; and to ensure that we increase the turnout.

David Davies: Will the Minister give way?

Harriet Harman: I will, but I do not want to make too lengthy a speech. If there could be fewer interventions, or at least if I could answer them more quickly, I would be able to get on with my speech.

David Davies: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Lady for giving way again, but does she share the concern of many people that, while it has been easy for large sections of the population to get on the register, it has not been easy for members of the armed forces? Given that members of the armed forces are serving around the world, carrying out the instructions and will of her Government, is it not shameful that so many of them were left off the electoral roll and were unable to vote in the last election?

Harriet Harman: I agree with the substance of the hon. Gentleman's point about service personnel, which I will deal with in due course. If I may, I should like to make some progress. I anticipate that my speech will deal with many of the points that Members want to make.
	So our three objectives are getting people who are entitled to vote on to the register, establishing a voting process that is more secure, and increasing turnout. The legitimacy of our system depends on making progress in all those areas. There is a great wealth of election experience in all parts of the House. I am by no means the longest serving Member of this House, but I have been returned in seven elections, and the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Bridget Prentice), who will respond to this debate, has been a candidate in five general elections and in many local elections. There is a wealth of experience in this House, but also beyond it. We need to draw on the experience of our colleagues in local government, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the European Parliament and the political partiesnot just the organisers, but the vast army of volunteers who do so much to make the electoral system work.
	I believe that we all share a commitment to a system that allows everyone the right to vote and is secure against fraud. While there should be no party difference on that point, the constituencies that we represent are very diversea fact that affects Members' approach to these issues. For example, more than a third of my constituents were not born in the United Kingdom. My constituency, which has a high population turnover and many people struggling on low incomes, is very different from that of the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire. It also differs from the constituency of the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), where, the electoral system must work for a population which, although stable, is very widely scattered. In some constituencies, the issue of student voting is very important; in others, the issue is the ability of servicemen and women to vote. The essential principles of our electoral system must be applied in all constituencies, not just some.
	The different concerns of Members in all parts of the House arise principally from the differences in the constituencies that we represent. We must acknowledge and respect those differences. Those in whose constituencies there is proven fraud should acknowledge that that is not the case everywhere. Those in whose constituencies fraud does not exist should not deny the need for robust anti-fraud systems. Those whose constituencies have no problem with under-registration should not deny that it is a huge problem in others. As I have said, probably more than 1 million people who are entitled to vote are not registered. The point is that both security and access to voting matter. Measures to tackle both issues must be adopted, and they must be proportionate and sensible.
	We will proceed on the basis of considering the evidence. We will respond to headlines, but only because we recognise that when they overstate the problem of fraud, we need to do what we can to reassure the public and to sustain confidence. We will not be complacent but nor will we panic, and we will proceed by way of consultation. We issued a policy paper last month and we are consulting on it. We are still considering the responses, so I have no further announcements to make today. However, I intend to listen carefully to this debate. I want to hear the speeches not only of Front Benchers, but of all Members in all parts of the House, so I will stay for the whole debate. We have also consulted by way of meetings and discussions with Members from all parties. I want to thank all those Members who have written to me and taken the time to give me their views in meetings. I believe that I am the only person to have invited the new Conservative Members to a meeting who is not also running for the Tory party leadership.
	We will continue to consult. We must have a system that ensures that all have the right to vote, which is not currently the case. As I said, there are probably more than a million who cannot vote because they are not on the register. That not only affects individuals who lose their right to vote, but undermines the basis on which the boundary commission does its work. That is why it is so important.

Alan Beith: I hope that the Minister recognises, as did two Committees in the last Parliament, that if we go for individual registration, for which there is a very powerful case, it will be essential to adopt various forms of data sharing to ensure that people are not left off the register. At least some of those who were left off the register in Northern Ireland were probably not on it fraudulently in the first place.

Harriet Harman: I pay tribute to the report produced by the right hon. Gentleman's Select Committee. It covers many important areas and we shall shortly be responding to it. It pulls together a great deal of information that had previously not been brought together as a basis for discussions and debates in the House.

Geoffrey Robinson: Following what the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said, is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that, having successfully fought even one more general electionalbeit including a by-electionthan she did, I like many others, have considerable experience in these matters? I have to say that the state of the electoral register for the last general election was the worst I have known it throughout my entire period in Parliament. We must place a much greater onus of responsibility on electoral registration officers to be proactiveincluding data sharing, where necessary. They must keep the registers up to date, accurate and correct in every respect, and they must report on the extent to which the registers are correct. Does the Minister have some proposals to deal with that matter, about which I have written to her?

Harriet Harman: May I thank my hon. Friend for his letter and say that his point is echoed in the Select Committee report. I have asked officials in my Department and the Electoral Commission to look further into how data cross-checks could both ensure that gaps on the register are filled and be a vehicle for detecting fraud.

Jim Cunningham: When the Minister follows up the matters raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson), will she also look into another problem of which many hon. Members, particularly those in Coventry, are aware? I refer to the reduction in the number of polling stations. Has it been done to make savings or is it geared up to encourage more people to vote? It has led to problems in Coventry, particularly for ethnic minorities. In the last election, many ethnic minority women had to walk very long distances to vote. I hope that the Minister will respond and do something about that.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes an important point about access to polling stations. There is also the problem of access to the electoral register. The Select Committee report mentioned that the latest estimate of the number of new Commonwealth citizens not registered is 36.6 per cent.
	We will all have experienced visiting a polling station on election day and being told by a constituent, I have come down to vote, but they won't let me. Can you please do something about it? We check the register and say, Sorry, but the person is not on the register.
	We are then told, But the council has just sent me a bill for my council tax. How can I not be on the register? There is a real prospect for data sharing to provide more complete registers and to check fraud. The exercise that one has to go through to get child benefit or a driving licence is much tougher than anything even the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire is suggesting for tightening up the electoral register.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: Many of the questions that the Minister is trying to answer are covered in Securing the Votethe Electoral Commission report of May this year. It suggests 11 main points as a way forward and I wonder whether the Minister's Department has had time to look at and assimilate those points. If so, does she intend to enact any of them?

Harriet Harman: Yes, we have looked at and assimilated them. The hon. Gentleman will see that some of them are reflected in the policy document that we sent him and all other hon. Members. He is welcome to contact me again, either in person or in writing, to tell me what he thinks of the Electoral Commission's views. The Electoral Commission has important information to supply and plays a very important role, but at the end of the day, Members of Parliament have to decide on the law and how to operate it.

Andrew Love: My right hon. and learned Friend has spoken eloquently about the democratic deficit caused by the million or so people missing from the register. Before she considers erecting any more hurdles for people wanting to join that register, will she use the evidence that she has cited to ensure that the measures do not put more people off?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend raises an important point. We need to achieve a more secure voting system and get more people on the register. It is not a matter of one or the other: we need to approach both problems on the same basis.
	Once again, the Opposition have renewed their attack on all-postal voting. As the House knows, the Government are consulting on action for greater security for postal votes. The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire does not need to urge us to look at that matter, as we have already agreed to do so, but we must do all we can to ensure higher turnouts. So far, all-postal voting has produced higher turnouts.
	In the light of concerns that we all have about falling turnouts, we will not change the provisions of the Representation of the People Act 2000, which allow the Secretary of State to agree to applications for all-postal voting in areas that want it. The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire asked for such applications to be allowed only under secondary legislation. I can tell him that today I have been considering an application from King's Lynn, where a parish council by-election is due to be held. In the past, the parish concerned has had some by-elections that involved all-postal voting, and some that did not. No complaints have been made about all-postal voting, which has led to turnouts of 33 per cent. By contrast, by-elections there that have not involved all-postal voting have achieved turnouts of only 11 per cent. Given that the parish is asking to be allowed to hold an all-postal vote, we should not tie up those responsible for holding the election with parliamentary problems. We should be satisfied that there is a consensus among people in that little area in favour of all-postal voting, and that it would be a bit heavy-handed of us to deny them the opportunity.

Oliver Heald: The Government set up the Electoral Commission to provide advice on these matters. Why will the right hon. and learned Lady not accept its recommendations on all-postal voting and individual voter registration? Why will she not do what the Government conceded was the right thing in Northern Ireland?

Harriet Harman: Advisers have the responsibility to advise, and we welcome and respect their advice. It is the responsibility of the Government to bring proposals to this House, and it is the responsibility of this House to decide.
	The Tory motion attacks our introduction of proportional voting systems in the devolved Administrations for undermining democratic accountability. I confess that I am slightly baffled. In his speech, the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire mounted full-blooded onslaughts on both proportional representation and the first-past-the-post system. I am therefore baffled as to what he proposes

Oliver Heald: I love first past the post.

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman says he loves the first-past-the-post system, but I am sure that he does not love the result of the general election.
	My officials are examining the data relating to the new voting systems for the devolved Administrations. Of course it makes sense to review our experience of different electoral systems, as well as looking at the experience abroad. However, I cannot help reflecting that it is curious for the Conservative party to say that proportional voting in the devolved Administrations undermines accountability and leads to extremism.
	If the Scottish Parliament were elected on the first-past-the-post basis, the Conservatives would have only three seats, whereas the proportional system has given them 18. In Wales, the Conservatives would have only one member of the Assembly under the first-past-the-post system, whereas the proportional system has given them 11. Without proportional representation, even the leader of the Conservatives in Wales would not be in the Welsh Assembly.
	One effect of the proportional voting system in Scotland and Wales has been greater Conservative representation. Is that what the Opposition mean by undermining accountability?

Julian Lewis: Will the right hon. and learned Lady give way?

Harriet Harman: In a moment. Although I am sure that it would cause no concern among Labour Members to lose Tory representation in England and Wales, it is strange to hear that that is Opposition policy.

Julian Lewis: The right hon. and learned Lady finds such things strange, but we take a principled position that, if a system is wrong, we should not abide by it, even if it benefits us. She said that one of the effects was that the Conservatives won more seats. Another effect is that the Liberals, who come third and fourth in such elections, get into government. Those are wholly disproportionate results.

Harriet Harman: As I have said, we are reviewing the data on how the new systems that we have introduced operate in the devolved Assemblies.
	Whenever anyone debates politics and elections in this country, they talk about trusttrust in politicians, trust in the system of government and trust in the voting system. No single policy or Minister can transform the self-evident problems that all of us, of whatever party, face in that regard, but we need to ensure that the system of votingfrom the compilation of the electoral register and the distribution of postal votes to the counting and declaration of resultsenjoys the fullest possible respect and trust in the nation.
	The Government are considering a range of measuresnot just in my Department, but across governmentto ensure that citizens are more engaged in our political processes and the decisions that affect their lives. Britain rightly takes pride in our democratic traditions based on fairness, the secret ballot and universal suffrage. This Labour Government take an equal pride in our longstanding dedication to democracy and will do everything to protect those fundamental principles.

David Heath: I welcome the debate and the contribution made by the Minister of State. I have said before, but I will say it again, that it is high time that we had in this House a Minister of her seniority from that Department and that the Department for Constitutional Affairs had repatriated to itself responsibility for these matters, rather than their being spread across other Departments. Both those things are welcome, as was the tenor of the right hon. and learned Lady's speech.
	I was not quite so happy with tenor of the response given by the Prime Minister during Prime Minister's questions earlier today, when in an overdose of either bombast or complacencyit was hard to tellhe appeared to suggest that the governance of Britain was a low priority for his Government. The mechanisms of the governance of Britain are absolutely integral to everything that we do in the House and everything that the Government do.
	We should be extremely concerned about the consequences of the last election, which have provoked comments, from a highly regarded national broadsheet paper that it was a subversion of democracy; from the Electoral Reform Society that it was the worst election ever; and that
	In some parts of the country there is a real feeling of alienation, of reluctance to participate in our democracy,
	which came from the Leader of the House. So there is a real issue to be faced.

Kevan Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Heath: Just let me get my introduction over and done with, and then I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.
	There is an unfortunate degree of complacency. The assumption is that because, happily, this country was the birthplace of modern democracy, our systems are necessarily robust and right. Those of us who have represented Parliament in monitoring elections abroadthe hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) made this pointknow that what we look for in an adequate electoral system are things such as a registration system that neither under-registers people who are entitled to vote nor over-registers those who are not entitled to do so and a robust and replicable identification system for voters. We look for the opportunities for fraud that the system offers. We look for abuses of the rules by political parties and others. We consider whether there is an independent electoral commission of which that country's Government take proper notice and whether the voting system properly reflects the views of the electorate. Judged on those criteria, it is hard to see how this country could pass such a test at present.

Kevan Jones: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that some of the sensationalist headlines that he has just read out do not mirror the facts? For example, the Electoral Commission's report on postal voting found little wrong with the system in terms of fraudexcept, obviously, in Birmingham. We should not get carried away by the headlines; we should look at the facts.

David Heath: I agree, and had I carried on a little longer before taking the hon. Gentleman's intervention I would have said that actuallymiraculously, given the openness of our system to fraud and malpracticemost of our electoral practice is correct and proper. People respect the rules. But we are very foolish and myopic indeed if we do not realise that we are laying ourselves open both to the charge that our system lacks integrity and to the reality that if people want to abuse the system they can do so with relative impunity, notwithstanding the high profile cases that have done such a great disservice to the confidence of the public in our system.

Mark Tami: The hon. Gentleman suggested that we should look at other countries. Perhaps we should look at Australia, which has a legal requirement that people take part in elections and where there are turnouts of well over 90 per cent. Any attempt at fraud is lessened because there is such a huge turnout.

David Heath: There has been a longstanding argument about whether we should have compulsory voting. I am not persuaded, and although I agree that it increases turnout because people are fined if they do not vote, it does nothing to maintain the integrity of the system unless other factors are in place.
	Notwithstanding the contribution of the Minister's and the fact that she clearly intends to introduce legislation, which I hope we shall all be able to welcome, I have one major criticism of the Government's position: they did not do much for public confidence in the system, or indeed the integrity of the system, by their conduct during the passage of the European Parliamentary and Local Election (Pilots) Act 2004, on which I represented my party. The Government's attitude was characterised by the fact that they ignored the recommendations of the Electoral Commission and the clear advice of parties in this and the other place. The Government went ahead with what they had intended to do in the first place, which left them open to the charge that they had acted for partisan purposes rather than having the integrity of the system as their main objective.

Stephen McCabe: May I return to the list of factors that the hon. Gentleman suggested we look for when observing elections in another country? I am happy to say that I agree with all of them, but I noticed that he did not include intimidation, which we should almost certainly be looking at in those circumstances. Does he accept that it is important, and indeed beholden on all of us in this place, to make sure that when we are describing fraud or malpractice we do not exaggerate it? We should not distort the evidence or use newspaper headlines for political advantage. If we do, we intimidate elderly people into not taking up their legal democratic right to a postal vote, as some people fear happened during the recent election. It certainly happened in Birmingham, owing to the disproportionate attention to what happened in two local government wards.

David Heath: The hon. Gentleman should take care about using the word disproportionate to describe convictions that were properly made in Birmingham and the facts revealed in a court. It is proper that such matters should be correctly reported and described. In other senses, however, I agree with him. Intimidation is a factor that we need to deal with, and later in my remarks I shall set out what all political parties should be doing about it.

John Hemming: Will my hon. Friend accept that Birmingham is perhaps unique in its commitment to dealing with electoral fraud, rather than unique as a place where electoral fraud occurs? Does he agree that there is evidence that electoral reform increases turnout by 20 per cent. in G8 countries and on average by 10 per cent. in other countries? If the Government were really committed to increasing turnout, they would introduce electoral reform.

David Heath: I agree with my hon. Friend and shall return to that point in a moment. Three things are essential to voters when they cast their ballots in elections. First, they must know that their votes are counted properly. Secondly, they must know that their votes will count, which relates to the point made by my hon. Friend. Thirdly, they must know that the person whom they elect counts and that a proper representative democracy is able to do its job in this placealthough the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire perhaps elided that point.

Julian Lewis: Before the hon. Gentleman moves on, may I refer him back to a couple of interventions that he took from Labour Members? They did not seem to dispute his point that the system is wide open to fraud, but simply tried to say that not many cases of that fraud had yet been discovered. When designing an electoral system, surely the point is that it should not be open to fraud and that it should not be incumbent on us to do the work of detectives to determine whether fraud is being committed. The point is that if fraud can take place, it might be committed without us knowing about it, so we should close the loopholes.

David Heath: I agree with the hon. Gentleman up to a point, although we live in the real world, so we would not be able to devise a system that would be wholly impossible to defraud. However, we must make it as difficult as possible to commit fraud, which is why the Electoral Commission's recommendations on individual voter identification and strictures on all-postal voting are extremely sensible. I regret those strictures because we have had a successful all-postal vote in my constituency, but clearly the system has not worked satisfactorily in all parts of the country. We should bring in additional anti-fraud measures. We all face the problem that if the system is open to malpractice, as sure as eggs is eggs, someone will attempt to abuse it.
	We currently do not know the extent of electoral fraud because until now we have taken the fairly Pollyanna-ish view that this is Britain and such things do not happen here. There is now evidence that such things do happen here, although we do not know to what extent because we do not have the mechanisms or audit systems to find out. I hope the thrust of the legislation that the Minister of State will bring forward will be to put appropriate systems in place and that all parties will be able to support her proposals. However, when that happens, all political parties will have the further requirement to take the matter seriously. I say all political parties because there is not one single political party that is not open to such abuse. Indeed, I suspect that there is not one party in which there has not been an incident of a person abusing the system.
	Part of a discussion that I had with the Minister of State the other day was the point that parties should have zero tolerance of such abuse. If people bend the rules, we need to make it clear that they no longer represent our party, the Conservative party, the Labour party, or any other party for which the democratic process is important. I am not only talking about the postal vote rigging that we have heard about, because we as politicians know that all sorts of abuses are possible. Incidents of votes being farmed in old people's homes have been reported over the years and it is time that that stopped. If anyone knows that it is happening, it is time for them to report it to the appropriate officers and for appropriate action to be taken in the relevant political party. People might receive an extra polling card and have the simple temptation to run down the street with it to get an extra vote, but it is not good enough to say that on the fringes that will not make a difference to the result, because it willevery single vote counts, so every single vote must be a properly registered vote.
	We need to examine some of the rulesthis is the last point I shall make about constituency electionsthat are still very lax. It might be said that my party would say that. We have funding limits for expenditure in elections in constituencies. We all laboriously complete forms after an election declaring what we have spent. We have to register every penny. We do that while other national parties put huge expenditure into a limited number of marginal constituencies across the country. That expenditure is vastly out of proportion to anything that is spent locally. How is that anything other than an abuse of the system and of the rules that we have in place?

Richard Younger-Ross: Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be wrong for a party to put out four letters by its national leader targeted to more than 50 per cent. of the voters, to put about a leaflet hand delivered and paid-for-delivery throughout the campaign and to put two advertisements in local newspapers, all purporting to be part of the national campaign, which have not had to be accounted for as part of local expenditure? This is a trend. I am not naming only one party. It is a trend among all parties. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a distortion of the process?

David Heath: I think that it is a distortion. I think that the three parties represented in the Chamber at present are guilty of it to differing degrees because we have different assets to our names. Nevertheless, we are guilty of it and it is time it stopped. It is also time the rules reflected that.
	I shall move on quickly because I know that many Members wish to speak. I am aware that I have taken many interventions.
	There is the issue about making votes count. Perhaps I might be expected to say this, but I am provoked to say it by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire putting into his motionand therefore making it one that I am incapable of supportingadverse comments on proportional representation. We have just had a general election where the turnout was 61 per cent. The Labour party, which formed a Government, achieved a 67-seat majority on 36 per cent. of the popular vote, representing just 22 per cent. of the electorate. That is the lowest figure since the Great Reform Act of 1832. That is a preposterous result for anyone who considers it sensibly.
	The hon. Gentleman was complaining about the fact that the result did not reflect the fact that the Conservatives had a majority of the votes in England. He is right to complain, but he cannot see the elephant invading his bedroom, which is that the answer is to have a system that properly reflects the weight of votes cast rather than the first-past-the-post system. There was a majority of the popular vote for the Conservatives in England yet the Conservatives have no representation in any of our great metropolises outside London.
	Let us consider the rural shires. In Cumbria, the Conservatives were the most popular party, with 38.2 per cent. of the vote, yet they had only one seat to show for it at the end. There were four seats for the Labour party and one seatit was an excellent winwhich was gained by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). That is hardly a reflection of the Conservative vote in Cumbria.
	In Cornwall 82,543 people voted Conservative. That was 31.8 per cent. of the electorate. The Liberal Democrats took five seats out of five and the Conservatives had norepresentation in Cornwall. In Cambridgeshire, 74,521 people voted for Labour. That was 24.7 per cent. of the electorate. There is no Labour representation in Cambridgeshire. In Surrey, 148,620 people voted Liberal Democrat. That was 28.4 per cent. of the electorate. We have not one seat in Surrey. There are 11 Conservatives out of 11. That cannot be defended in any circumstances as a fair outcome.

Oliver Heald: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the bias in the system is mostly accounted for by variations in size between constituencies throughout the United Kingdom? If we had an equal electoral quota that was properly implemented throughout the country so that constituencies were the same size, we would have a much more proportional system and one that did not have that bias within it?

David Heath: That is arithmetical nonsense. The hon. Gentleman is saying that because the average Conservative electorate consists of 73,004, people his party is badly treated. My electorate consists of 77,000 people, and I do not feel badly treated. Making the highland seats any bigger would make them virtually the same size as a small country, and that is not a sensible form of representation.
	Equalisation raises a number of issues, including the time at which we take the figures. I hesitate to mention another reason for the inequalities because I am worried about the consequences, but in the shire authorities we rely on the county boundaries to be coterminous with the sum total of the constituency. We have large constituencies in Somerset simply because in the present administrative county we do not yet merit the sixth constituency that we would otherwise deserve.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: rose

David Heath: I have tempted the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger) by mentioning Somerset, but he should bear it in mind that if he wishes to intervene he will take more time from colleagues.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: The hon. Gentleman has made a valid point. As he knows, the boundary commission report has made it much more difficult in Somerset to secure that sixth seat. Does he agree that the position is iniquitous for Somerset and other counties and it is time that the boundary commission reformed itself?

David Heath: There is an absurdly small variation to the boundary between the Somerset and Frome and Yeovil seats. It has not resulted in a change in the net population or, as far as I can see, its political propensity, so it is utterly pointless.
	I appreciate the demands on our time, so I shall conclude by referring to the need for accountability. If we want people to be interested in elections they must believe that they are electing someone who will do a satisfactory job for them, and will have the opportunity to represent them properly and scrutinise the Government. The House is failing in that duty, and both it and the House of Lords need to be reformed. We must look at the two issues in the round, and get on with the reform programme. I welcome the review of electoral systems by the Department for Constitutional Affairs, although I have doubts and regrets about the Cabinet Sub-Committee and its chairman, as I fear that they may obstruct sensible arrangements. I look forward eagerly to the electoral administration Bill.
	I do not support the Conservative motion, because of the rush of blood to the head that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire experienced halfway through his speech, when he became peevish about proportional representation. I do not support the Government amendment, which is the most complacent amendment I have ever seen and appears to suggest that everything is rosy when clearly it is not. We shall take great pleasure in voting against both.

Several hon. Members: rose

Madam Deputy Speaker: Several hon. Members roseI remind all right hon. and hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed an eight-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.

Roger Godsiff: There is much that I would like to say, but time is limited for all of us, so I ask the House to forgive me if I pass over some matters.
	In the debate on 22 June last year, I explained to the House how the postal vote system had been abused in Birmingham and turned into political currency. I do not wish to revisit the issue, not least because matters are sub judice, but I should like to highlight the action taken by the returning officer in Birmingham to try to prevent the situation from arising at the general election. The returning officer wrote to everyone who was on the postal vote list, which resulted in a great number of people being removed from it. Indeed, in one ward where there was controversy the number went down from 8,600 people to 3,000. Hon. Members will agree that that is a huge drop. The returning officer worked with the West Midlands police to investigate all multiple applications, and the police visited houses where more than five people had applied for postal votes. Together with the work to encourage all political parties to sign up to a code of conduct, that ensured that the contests that took place in Birmingham during the general election were not subject to the problems that occurred in local elections.
	There are three issues that I shall touch on briefly. First, how do we prevent the electoral process from being corrupted by fraudulent use of postal votes? I am not in favour of all-postal voting, particularly when that system is imposed on people against their will. I agree with the Opposition spokesperson who referred to the dangers of gimmicky e-voting. It is fraught with dangers and if it is brought in, it will cause even more problems than have occurred with postal voting. But there is no doubt that many people like the opportunity to vote by post, so we must devise a system that is as foolproof as possible.
	To go on the electoral register, a person should have to sign. Whether they sign individually or sign a form that comes to the house, there must be a signature. If that person applies for a postal vote, the signature on the application must be checked against the signature provided to go on the register. As a final safeguard, when the person fills in the postal vote and sends it back with the declaration of secrecy, that signature must also be checked. Those are positive steps that can be taken and would make a real impact. I know that it would cost money and there would be arguments against such a system, but what is the price of democracy? I strongly urge my right hon. and learned Friend to consider that seriously as part of legislation.
	Secondly, we should revisit the argument about obligatory voting. Some people call it compulsory voting, but it is not. It just obliges somebody as a citizen in a democratic society to go to a polling station or to get a postal vote. What they do with the ballot paper afterwards is entirely a matter for them. All right hon. and hon. Members will have gone through the salutary experience on election night of watching the disputed votes and seeing what some of our electors think of us. I have no problem with that. People are exercising their democratic right. I would not object if there was a place on the ballot paper where a voter could write None of the above or write in the name of a candidate for whom they did want to vote.
	We are allowing a cop-out from the democratic system. If we want higher turnout, we should move towards the Australian system of obligatory voting. It is far better than going in for various gimmicky ways of trying to increase the turnout which are fraught with dangers, as has been found with postal votes.
	The final point concerns a problem that occurs in an area such as mine, which I hope my right hon. and learned Friend will take on board in legislation. What happens on election day in a constituency such as mine is not how elections used to be fought. Traditionally, at the polling station there would be a representative of each of the parties, the number taker, and there would be a great deal of conviviality and sharing of information.
	That does not exist in areas such as mine. On election day groups of people congregate at the entrance to polling stations. They hand out leaflets and talk to people, particularly in areas where English is not the first language and where the number on the ballot paper is even more important than the name. They give out a great deal of misinformation. During the day the numbers at each polling station build up so that by early evening, as happened in my constituency at the recent election, there are 50 or 60 people at the gates.
	The police are there and struggle to prevent violence breaking out. In the background there is the cacophony of cars parked outside the polling station with recorded messages from the candidates on a repetitive reel, so that goes on throughout the day. All the traditional conventions that most of us may remember, whereby a loudspeaker was not allowed anywhere near a polling station and there was no campaigning on polling day, have gone by the board. Somebody who wants to vote from the early evening onwards has to go through a cacophony of sound, intimidation, harassment and misinformation, and that is only to get into the polling station. It is no good turning round and saying, Well, the police have powers to deal with that. As we have learned in the west midlands, the police do not have such powers. New legislation is needed to prevent campaigning within a certain area around a polling station, because the police do not have a hope at the moment. I have shared my views with hon. Members, but I am mindful of the fact that time is limited.
	I welcome the Government's intention to introduce legislation. I also welcome the fact that both the Minister of State and the Under-Secretary have fought many elections and are therefore experienced. I am sure that their boss in the Department also has long experience of fighting elections, and I hope that they share their experiences with him in drawing up the legislation.
	I urge Ministers to take on board my remarks this evening, which are a genuine attempt to address the issues. When I referred to what happens on polling day, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Steve McCabe) and others nodded vigorously, and if the issue is not addressed, the situation will get worse.

Peter Bottomley: Although I have probably experienced more elections than most hon. Members, my experience is not as extensive as that of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath (Mr. Godsiff).
	The Electoral Commission should fund closed circuit television supervision of what goes on outside polling stations, which would allow the police and others to take action after an election, because the certainty of action will stop people from engaging in an activity that is undesirable and should be unlawful. Voting without intimidation matters in a family, outside a polling station and inside a polling station.
	In approximately 1997, I first raised the question of allowing outside observers into polling stations. If I go as an observer to El Salvador, South Africa or anywhere else, I expect to go into a polling station. I expect authorised observers following our elections to be able to do the same thing here, and I hope that there will not be another national election in which that cannot happen.
	The Electoral Commission should be given funds to allow it, rather than local authorities, to provide money to electoral returning officers. I have not seen complaints from electoral returning officers about the allocation of funds within local authorities, but that temptation should be avoided.
	I demand that the Government make sure that every service voter is registered by the time of the next national election, which is a point that applies to both local and general elections. It is scandalous that the Government made changes that made it less likely that service voters would be on the electoral register, and all their words before the last election were inadequate. We should not spend too long going over the past, but Ministersnot only Defence Ministers, but Ministers with responsibility for electoral registration and, preferably, the Prime Minister, toomust make sure that a service voter's ability to vote is maintained by their service unit and the Government.
	A similar point applies to overseas voters in general. When I visited Mallorca, I met potential voters, and the British Government expend very little effort on people who are eligible to vote from overseas countries. The high commission or embassy website might refer to registration, but nothing is released in the British community stating, This is the easy way to register to voteand you should do so. I want to see all-party work on that point, and perhaps the opportunity to send out members on balanced delegations should be extended to the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association to try to encourage that process. If people like such trips, why not take them for a good cause that helps democracy?
	If we were to introduce voting at 16, one advantage would be that people could automatically move from the child benefit register to the voting register. As a growing number of families receive child benefit until children are 18, the transfer should become automatic. The measure should not entail a breach of data confidentiality, so let us take that simple, practical step.
	Let us try to ensure that we get the co-operation of mobile phone services, because most people coming up to the age of 18 and eligible to be registered to vote should be able to send a public service message to do so, if that is allowed by this House, as that goes beyond ordinary data protection issues. A whole series of those simple things could happen, in addition of course to the council tax payer being automatically expected to be on the electoral register.
	I turn to individual registration, which was one of the issues discussed by the Electoral Commission and by the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs combined with the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister just before the election. Although there are arguments for individual registration, they are not so overwhelming that an electoral register should require an individual signature. Students in halls of residence would not register in great numbers if that were the requirement. It is preferable that one person in a household should be able to nominate people on the register. Perhaps then, if the electoral registration system requires something to go out to individual potentially registered voters, they can sign up for a postal vote or any other method of voting, and that can be checked. The initial movement towards the register should come from the householder or pseudo-householder, whether they be the warden of a students' hall of residence, a landlord, the manager of a residential home for the elderly, or someone like me with a household that is occasionally full of children eligible to vote.
	A whole series of other issues matter, but given that attendance has been quite good and that colleagues on both sides of the House still want to speak, all I want to say is: Don't let this discussion be totally distorted by arguments for proportional representation, because that has been shown to be a last-past-the-post system on too many occasions. If we want to start talking about electoral systems, let us have a proper debate on getting rid of the worst scandal in our system at the momentthe closed list system for the European Parliament elections. If the electorate cannot pick out someone they particularly want and get them elected or pick out someone they particularly do not want and get them disappointed, we shall have a system that is not democracy.

Clive Betts: I apologise for having a slight sore throat, which means that I might not be quite as voluble as normal; some Members may of course welcome that.
	I welcome the all-postal voting pilots but, having had the chance to learn from them, we should not pursue all-postal voting in future. I say that for two reasons: first, they deny the individual the choice of whether they vote by post or go to the polling station, and secondly, we should develop, as the Electoral Commission wants to, one standard method for all elections so that voters may be certain whether they will be voting by post or at the polling station, or a mixture of the two, which is the option that I favour. Voters should be able to decide whether they want to vote by post or at the polling station and tick a box on the electoral registration formit should be as simple as that. Some authorities are already taking that route.
	Generally speaking, our electoral system is secure. There have been one or two high-profile cases, mostly involving postal votesnot all-postal votes, but postal votes per se. Those have been much highlighted in the press and are to be deplored. However, the Electoral Commission and the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister undertook investigations and proposed several serious, important and welcome suggestions as to how we can make the system even safer, including the introduction of new offences surrounding postal votes.
	The real problem with the current system is the appallingly low level of voter registrationthat is the challenge that we have on our hands. By and large, it is not evenly spread across the country. In areas where people are socially and economically excluded, those people are becoming politically excluded as well. That should be a serious worry for us.
	The annexe to the report produced by the Select Committees on Constitutional Affairs and on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister contains an interview that I did with the electoral registration officer in Sheffield. It was interesting to learn that the initial canvass of voter registration in the city produced a 90 per cent. return of electoral registration forms in the leafy suburbs of Hallam. In the poorer parts of the inner city in Sheffield, Central, it was just over 50 per cent. That is telling.
	Different electoral registration officers conduct different practices. For example, some electoral registration officers will remove a household from the register if a form is not returned for two consecutive years, whereas others will leave it on. Some will leave the household on if they can find other evidence, such as council tax registration, which shows that people still live in the property. Different systems operate. Whatever system we adopt nationally, electoral registration officers locally must follow a clear code of practice, meaning that the same system and rules operate throughout the country.
	I recognise and accept that we must move towards individual registration, with a signature. That is sensible from a security point of view. However, we have to learn from what happened in Northern Ireland, where the number of people who registered fell dramatically. People may claim that that was because some people were doubly registered, but the fall went on after the first year. It continued after the so-called clean-up of the register. There is a genuine problem of not registering, and if we do nothing but introduce individual registration, it will get worse. That will apply especially to groups who are socially and economically excluded. The registration officer in Sheffield said to me, If you're going to change the system, change it fundamentally. Don't try to build bits on to the existing system, which clearly doesn't work properly.
	Some members of the Select Committee went to Australia. We appeared in one or two national newspapers for our pains and learned some interesting things about the system there. First, we were asked what we did. When we said that we began by writing to every household every year, we received blank looks and were asked, What? Why do you write every year to households that haven't changed? The same people live in a house for 15, 20 or 25 yearsnothing changesbut you write them? If they don't write back, you write to them again, and if they don't reply for two years running, you take them off the list? Is that a way of trying to encourage people to register? Are you putting your resources into the right activities? You do that for four months of the year and nothing for the other eight? What is the point?
	The Australian system is simple. There is a register, which remains in place unless people change. There are various ways of notifying changes of address or age or deaths. Of course people can write with the information, but there is also a requirement on the Post Office, the utilities, the driving licence people and local authorities to provide information. Schools and colleges get paid a bonus for giving information. Such information can also be gleaned from the register of births and deaths. That enables the registration officers and the relevant authorities to concentrate on the changes, follow them up and ensure that the information is accurate and goes on the register.
	There is therefore no annual audit or review in Australia, although the possibility of conducting a review every three years was considered. We could conduct a three-yearly audit on a rolling basis here, so that electoral registration officers were not obliged to put all their resources into a four-month period every year. It could be spread out over a longer time to verify the accuracy of the register but concentrate on instances where change had occurred.

Several hon. Members: rose

Clive Betts: I will not take interventions because other hon. Members want to speak.
	Eventually, this country will have the most comprehensive database of individuals and where they live, drawn up for the national identity card scheme. Why do not we have a direct read-across? If people want a secure, comprehensive system with integrity, there we have it. We would save resources at local authority level. There would be no need for all the canvassing, verification and checking that currently occurs. Local authorities could pay the national register for the information. That would contribute towards the cost of the register. It would save central Government and local authorities money and be a comprehensive system with integrity and security. We should consider it seriously. It would be a dramatic step forward, which will give us a register that is 99 per cent. accurate. If that is what everyone wants as a basis for our electoral system, the Government should consider it seriously.

Eric Pickles: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts). I commiserate with him on the state of his voice and hope that he finds a lozenge soon. I agree about the importance of the electoral registration system being open and welcoming. It also needs to be transparent and, above all, to inspire confidence.
	Much to my surprise, it is nearly 40 years since I joined a political party. I recall that, in the late 1960s, no one really questioned the honesty of the British electoral system. It was taken for granted that it was run correctly, but that is no longer the case. People doubt the integrity of the ballot box. This was my fourth general election in Brentwood and Ongarthis seems to be confession time, with me telling the House how many times I have fought an electionand I think that I also fought four elections as a district councillor. This is the first time I can remember people coming up to me to express their worries about the safety of their postal vote because of what had appeared in the newspapers.
	The expression of such worries was not confined to those in political parties. The electoral registration officer for Brentwood borough council, Mr. Jim Stevensa man of considerable experience in the conduct of elections, both in this country and overseasreported to me an unprecedented number of telephone calls from people seeking reassurance that their postal vote would be safe. Even in a quiet place such as Brentwood, we have one election fraud case pending.
	In my old area of Bradford, the returning officer, Mr. Philip Robinson, has called for
	urgent reviews of electoral registration and postal voting on demand . . . in advance of the next elections in 2006.
	I have known Philip for the best part of 25 years, and I worked closely with him for 12. He is not a man who moves with the whim of fashion. He is not an excitable man; he is a dedicated, loyal public servant who would not have called for such reviews had he not been shocked enough to feel that some probity should be brought back into the electoral system. Probity is important. Of course, there will be unscrupulous people who try to cut corners, but we must build into the system a degree of probity. It is with some regret that I say that the Government have, unintentionally, built probity out of the system, rather than building it in.
	The Minister of State does us a great courtesy by remaining in the Chamber for the whole of our debate. She asked for suggestions on how to improve the situation, and I shall give her three. I could give more, but because of the time limit I shall let these three speak for all of them.
	The document issued by the Department for Constitutional Affairs suggests allowing people to register to vote after an election has been called, up to 11 days before the poll. Under the current law, there is a five-day period of objection. That would mean that there would be just six days before the election to check people entering the register at that point. The chances of fraud or multi-registration would be much greater. If the present March deadline allows vote factories to operate, how much greater would that problem be with an 11-day deadline? Such a deadline would provide little or no chance to check that the voter had been removed from their previous address, and in most cases, such voters would have the opportunity to vote in another electoral district.
	It has also been proposed to replace the serial numbers on ballot papers with barcodes. That might sound sensible because it would increase transparency, but it is probably the best example of the Government's determination to increase postal voting at the expense of the polling station and ignores the reality on the ground. The Government's argument that the measure would increase safety and improve anonymity is wrong-headed, because, at present, only a court can open ballot papers and check them against the numbers provided. The use of numbers is of immense importance because they can be used by the polling clerk and the returning officer to reconcile information, first to ensure that the right number of ballot papers have been issued in the right order and, secondly, to ensure that the same number of ballot papers that leave a polling station arrive at the other end. If barcodes replaced the numbering system, we would not know whether any ballot papers had gone missing on the route between polling station and counting station. Something that would be handy for the purposes of postal votes would undermine the whole process of voting in person.
	The hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath (Mr. Godsiff) made a point about signatures. The document suggests that people should be able to apply for postal votes at the same time as applying for registration. Many authorities have invested in software that identifies signatures. If a person makes both applications at the same time, it will be impossible to check for fraud. That is wholly wrong. I agree with him that signatures should be integral: when people go into the polling station, they should sign the register.
	I think that it would be possible to introduce several reforms to encourage turnout without compromising the integrity of the ballot paper. The Government suggest that applications for postal votes should be made 11 days before the polling date rather than six, which would allow for fraud checks to be made. The drawback is that many people would not be able to vote, and many would object at the polling station. If a proxy vote could be issued six days, or three days, in advancethat, after all, relies on the issuing of a single paperthe Government's sensible suggestion might be workable, and people would still be able to vote.
	Those who want to increase voter participation and want more people to go to the polling station should think about the powers of local government. If all decisions are made in a remote region, people will not see the point of going out to vote. If power is given to local authorities, people will vote.

Alan Whitehead: This has turned out to be a thoughtful debate, but unfortunately the motion does not seem to be as thoughtful as the speeches made by Members in all parts of the House. It appears to concentrate on just one aspect of what I consider to be the triple responsibility that we all have for the legitimacy of our system. Our three responsibilities are to ensure that the franchise is accessible and that people have access to it, to ensure that people can use the franchise and vote, and to ensure that when people have voted they believe they have voted fairly, safely and securely and that the result is therefore legitimate. Those three legs supporting the system's legitimacy are integral to its operation. If we pull them apart or concentrate on just one, the system itself will not have the integrity that we would wish it to have.
	Our electoral process has always been open to determined fraud and abuse. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) observed, it is miraculous that, over the years, it has not been systematically abused as it might have been through personation, false registration, ballot purchase and so forth. It is certainly true that the system can be attacked. It is also true that it is failing almost completely in some parts of the country. I refer to the first leg of the system's legitimacythe question of who registers to vote.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) mentioned the difficulty of registering, or regaining registration, in different parts of Sheffield. The figures show startling differences in different seats. They range from registration levels of under 70 per cent. of the census figure in some parts of the country to 105 per cent. of the census figure in other parts. It will not be difficult for hon. Members to guess which parts of the country represent which end of the scale. In inner-city areas, in large conurbations and, interestingly, in seaside towns, registration is very bad. Conversely, in some rural and semi-rural areas, particularly in parts of my county of Hampshire, not only is registration up with the census but it continues to build on the censusevery person who could conceivably be registered every year in terms of the census extrapolation becomes registered.
	If we extrapolated that and compared the population of constituencies with the size of the population on the register, we would find that the constituencies were rather similar in size, but that our system is gradually distorting through boundary revisions to build under-registration into our system. That does not seem to represent well the leg of legitimacy that I emphasised earlier.
	The decline in trust in our society may have begun to lead, as the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) mentioned, to the questioning veracity in the electoral system. We always have accepted essentially that people are who they say they are when they register, that they are who they say they are when they go to vote and that they put in the ballot box the ballot that they have been given by the returning officer between the table and the box in which the ballot is placed.
	There have at all stages been electoral petitions and various actions to challenge each of those processes. There have not been fundamental changes in the way in which we have conducted those various processes, even though those challenges have been made, there have been election petitions and the charges have been upheld on occasion.
	It is interesting that every change in how our electoral system works has been accompanied by substantial charges that the change was essentially fraudulent, that everything would go to pot and that it would not work. When the Ballot Act 1872 came in, there were widespread charges concerning the so-called Tasmanian dodge. People said that there would be electoral officers standing outside the polling booth giving the first voter a blank piece of paper, that they would go in, put the blank piece of paper in, take the vote out, take the money for the vote, give it to a second person who was corrupted and that would continue during the day. No evidence was ever found that the Tasmanian dodge ever happened but the system of watermarking perforation on ballot papers was introduced as a result of fears of the Tasmanian dodge.
	Notwithstanding the seriousness of the cases that have come to light about elements of fraud with the ballot system and postal ballot system, the postal ballot is important in terms of how people vote as their lives change and in increasing participation in elections, one of the legs of legitimacy that I mentioned. The idea that a system, if organised well, can be completely secure is something that perhaps we will come to see as similar to the Tasmanian dodge.
	It is essential that we ensure that we have integrity in our electoral system, and I commend the Green Paper for discussion. I hope that it will come substantially into legislation to ensure that that integrity is enhanced, but we have to be clear in our minds that, if we tilt in one direction so much in making sure that there are no possible ways in which fraud could ever conceivably enter into our electoral system, we will do so at the expense of most people's access to the ballot in the first place. That will be the end of legitimacy in a different direction.
	The Conservative candidate in Southampton was seen giving money to electors both in the city centre and later on at a public meeting on the edge of the city. Obviously, that was deplorable but fortunately the electors of Southampton have not let the results of the 1895 election in Southampton, which resulted in the arrest of the Conservative candidate and his disbarment on the election petition, undermine the integrity of the system. We should be vigilant against fraud in the electoral system, but we must also ensure that that system is open and democratic and capable of being exercised by those who vote in Britain.

Julian Lewis: Because we have so little time left, I propose, if asked to do so, to give way to one intervention from each of the remaining two speakers; otherwise, I fear that they might not get in.
	I want briefly to deal with four issues: proportional representation; turnout; the experience of the trade unions; and, in a rather more whimsical vein, the Labour party. PR is commonly regarded as an abbreviation for proportional representation, but I have always believed that it stands for something else: permanent ruleby the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats constantly say that there is massive under-representation in seats when one compares seats won with votes cast. But what really matters to a Government in an electionbe it a Government in Wales, in Scotland or in the United Kingdomis not how many seats a particular party gets, but whether that party gets into government.
	Under PR, the party that comes thirdor fourth, as the Liberal Democrats have on more than one occasion in Scotland and in Wales, let alone in the United Kingdomholds the balance of power. So on the basis of the smallest share of the vote, it gets into government and, indeed, chooses which of the other two parties will form that Government. That is a much greater distortion of the election result than the artificial exaggeration of seats. Power in this House, for example, is not in proportion to the number of seats held by each party. That power goes to the party that has the overall majority, and it makes very little difference whether that majority is 50 or 150.
	Turnout is constantly regarded as the paradigm of whether a new system is working. It is a misleading paradigm.

Adam Afriyie: It strikes me that one of the most significant developments in British democracy was the secret ballot, which was introduced in 1872. In the light of the various points that have been made, does my hon. Friend agree that the continuing use of the ballot boxin which people can physically cast their vote securely, free from coercion, intimidation and observationis important?

Julian Lewis: It is important, and I am glad that my hon. Friend made that point which has not been mentioned today, but which was referred to before the general election, when these issues were being discussed. It is understandable that we have postal ballots for people who might not be able to get to the ballot box. We take the risk that their privacytheir right to vote in a polling booth in secretmight be affected. However, we should remember that when people vote in private at a polling station, they may well vote differently from how they would vote at home, where they might come under pressure. People have often said to me on the doorstep, I will vote for you but my other half won't. How often will that be allowed to happen when people have to vote at home?

John Hemming: Oddly enough, I had intended to raise the issue of the secret ballot myself. I represent a local government ward as well as a parliamentary constituency, and in that capacity I share part of the Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath constituency. It is true that there is substantial intimidation in the streets from time to time. The Labour party leaflet on getting out the postal vote describes everybody's house as a polling station. The big question is, where is the presiding officer?

Julian Lewis: I pay tribute to the work that the old Liberal party and the current Liberal Democrats have done over many years on secure postal ballots and the avoidance of intimidation and fraud.
	Some 20 years ago, I worked with a cross-party group of Social Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives and Labour peers to amend the Trade Union Act 1984 to make postal ballots compulsory for trade union elections. That worked because the papers being distributed were under the control and verification of the Electoral Reform Society. Postal ballots can be a blessing when they are properly controlled; they can be a curse when, as in the electrical trade union scandals of the early 1960s, they are not properly controlled.
	My final, more whimsical, remarks relate to the Labour party. The Labour candidate who stood against me in the general election turned out, after the event, tobe a senior figure in an organisation called tacticalvoter.net. He sabotaged his own campaignhe did not even issue an electoral addressin his attempt to help the Liberals beat me. It appeared later that the reason why he, rather than a local candidate wanting to fight a straightforward campaign for Labour, was nominated was that Labour selects its candidates partly by postal balloting. He went round many people in the local Labour party and got their postal votes. Did he tell them that he was going to sabotage his own campaign? I doubt it. If the Minister is to clean up postal voting for the country, she should think about cleaning up postal balloting in the Labour party.

Jonathan Djanogly: We have had a short, but important, debate this afternoon. If the public has no confidence in the electoral system, that system will be called into question and it will ultimately become nothing more than a banana republic. That is exactly the description given to our democratic system by the judge in the recent electoral fraud case in Birmingham.

Si�n Simon: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Jonathan Djanogly: I am afraid time does not allow it.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) pointed out in a thoughtful speech, even banana republics allow outside observers. The integrity of our electoral system is not just in question, but in danger.
	We have heard various examples this afternoon of the malaise that has hit our electoral system. We have heard about fraud, poor registration procedures, administrative incompetence, wildly unequal constituency sizes and over-representation in urban areas. Clearly, something must be done to remedy the situation. Indeed, the Electoral Commission has been warning since 2002 of the need for reform but the Government did not listen. If they had, we might have avoided some of the many instances of fraud that have happened across the country.

Si�n Simon: rose

Jonathan Djanogly: In the infamous case of the Birmingham councillors in 2004, the judge accused the Government of being not only complacent, but in denial.
	There have nevertheless been some developments. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath (Mr. Godsiff) mentioned the priority given to counter-fraud in Birmingham during the election, which is welcome. Other Members have spoken about other developments and the Minister noted that the Government have woken up to the reality and are proposing some long-overdue reforms to our system. She supported the proposals in the Government's policy paper of May 2005, most of which were recommended by the Electoral Commission and should have been implemented long ago. Today, however, the Minister spoke as if many of these were new issues in relation to which action suddenly needs to be taken. Although the Conservative Opposition welcome the proposals, we maintain that they are too little, too late. Even if the proposals go aheadwe hope they doseveral deficiencies in the electoral system will remain.

Si�n Simon: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that particular point?

Jonathan Djanogly: I would like to focus on two key issues: postal voting and electoral quotas.
	The number of reported instances of suspected fraud relating to postal votes is alarming. For example, following the recent general election, the police have reportedly investigated dozens of claims of vote tampering. That gives rise to the question of how much electoral fraud over postal votes has taken place without being reported. After hearing evidence of the councillors' fraud in Birmingham, the judge said:
	Short of writing 'Steal Me' on the envelopes, it is hard to see what more could be done to ensure their coming into the wrong hands.

Si�n Simon: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that?

Jonathan Djanogly: All right, I shall put the hon. Gentleman out of his misery.

Si�n Simon: Many thanks. Is it the position of the official Opposition that this country has seen widespread and serious electoral fraud in recent years? I am asking not what the judge thinks, not what the papers think, but what the Tories think.

Jonathan Djanogly: We maintain that there has been widespread fraud and that it has to be dealt with.
	Even where fraud did not occur, the all-postal pilots were a disaster. The Electoral Commission reported printing and production errors in the postal ballot packs, the late delivery of votes and the absence of any checks on the identity of voters. As postal votingand, even more dangerously, e-votingdoes not have the supervision of polling stations, we believe that safeguards are essential to ensure that personation does not occur and that the postal voting system recovers its integrity. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) made that point strongly.
	Several hon. Members, of all parties, supported the introduction of individual registration to safeguard the secrecy and security of postal voting. The Electoral Commission has advocated that for several years. The demography of our society has changed radically. The family home is no longer the norm, and houses are often divided into flat shares or multiple occupancy residences.
	Individual registration is now used in Northern Ireland to prevent a person from registering several times in one constituencysomething that journalists have proved is all too easy to achieve in England. The Government have expressed concerns that the system may reduce participation, but is it really advantageous to have greater participation in a system littered with fraud? Can such an election truly be a fairer representation of the people?
	My hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) said that reduced participation could be explained by the fact that each voter could register only once, instead of making the multiple registrations that were prevalent in the past. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) expanded on that point by showing how other forms of fraud could emanate from that. My hon. Friends the Members for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies) and for Worthing, West showed that where the Government should be aiding registrationfor example, in the armed servicesthey have so failed to do so.
	Another innovation in Northern Ireland was the introduction of individual identifiers to guard against fraud. As we have heard, Northern Irish citizens must give their national insurance number and date of birth when they register to vote. That offers safeguards against illegitimate multiple registration by citizens, and improper registration by non-citizens.
	Most critically for non-supervised postal votes, national insurance numbers must be submitted with the ballot papers to combat the fraud that is evidently rife. The Government, and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath, proposed that a person's signature and date of birth should be used as individual identifiers. However, we believe that that will not be sufficient to eradicate fraud, as dates of birth and signatures are widely available and easy to replicate. By contrast, national insurance numbers are not widely in circulation.
	When secure, postal votes are clearly desirable to facilitate voting for the widest possible cross section of the community. Postal voting also ensures that people who live abroad or who are infirm, disabled or caught up in inflexible working schedules can vote. However, we strongly oppose all-postal voting. It is vital that British citizens should have a choice about the method of voting.

Mark Pritchard: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Jonathan Djanogly: I am afraid that time does not allow me to.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) was right to say that postal voting is too remote and uncertain for a measurable proportion of our society. The Minister of State was vague on that point. She said that she would review postal voting, but then went on to refuse to rule out the use of all-postal voting in the future. As my hon. Friends the Members for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) and for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) noted, British citizens value their right to go to a polling station and vote in person.
	Several hon. Members supported compulsory voting. I believe that that would increase turnout, but not necessarily the quality of the system. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe had some useful ideas in respect of a rolling audit process.
	The second crucial area in which reform is demanded is electoral quotas. Representation will be unequal unless each constituency is made up of a comparable number of citizens, and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) showed clearly that Parliament would offer only a distorted reflection of society as a result. That was certainly the case with the recent general election.
	Support was expressedespecially by our Liberal colleaguesfor proportional representation to remedy the balance. The Conservative Opposition maintain that that is not the answer, and my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) made the reason for that very clear.
	Turnout was abysmal in our first PR elections for the European Parliament. Many people deeply resented having to vote for a party list rather than for an individual who would be responsible and answerable to the people and not to his or her party machine.
	The Minister of State questioned our commitment to the first-past-the-post system, but I can reaffirm that now. That system promotes accountability and provides for a stable and effective Government. What the Minister should be considering is the boundary commission review that proposes constituencies of fantastically different sizes, varying from just over 50,000 to 150,000 voters. That is unacceptable and allows excessive over-representation in urban areas.
	Whether or not trimming down the number of MPs is achievedsomething that the Conservative party believed should have happened for the last electionthe change that we want would represent the weight of votes cast, as expressed by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), thus ensuring that all British citizens are equally represented no matter where they live. The integrity of an electoral system is essential to the credibility of any democratic system. The British electoral system is now in danger of losing its credibility, and we need to appreciate that that would ultimately threaten the legitimacy of the actions and decisions made in the House. I urge hon. Members to support the motion.

Bridget Prentice: I rise with some trepidation to speak in the debate, because I have not made a speech in the House for two years, unless hon. Members count saying, I beg to move that this House do now adjourn as amounting to a speech.
	This has been a very interesting debate on a subject that is close to the hearts of all hon. Members. My right hon. and learned Friend expressed in her opening remarks a wish to use the expertise of all hon. Members to increase voter participation and engagement in the electoral process, and I want to echo that this evening. Clearly, there has been cross-party consensus on some of the fundamental issues. Few Members have argued against a system whereby it is easy and straightforward for people to register and vote or against one that is safe and secure.
	I agree with the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) that we need a robust system, and I hope that he would agree with us that part of the fundamental problem with bias is the under-representation in some areas of the country, and that we must work hard to ensure that the register is improved. That is the essence of our democratic society.
	We have heard a number of useful contributions from hon. Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath (Mr. Godsiff) made a number of important points and, indeed, has already responded to the consultation exercise. He made a particularly good point about the practical work that is already being undertaken in his constituency under the present system. That is something on which we want to build. He also made a powerful case about extending the rights of arrest outside polling stations, and I can assure him that we are genuinely consulting on that.
	The hon. Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) made a very considered speech, with a number of positive points, and I want to tell him, too, that we are consulting on whether to allow observers into polling stations and that we completely take his point about service personnel. The idea that those people from our country who are doing the ultimate duty as citizens, as members of our forces, should in some way be denied the fundamental right of citizenship is not one that any hon. Member could support. We will consider very carefully building on the issues that we included in the Representation of the People Act 2000, to increase the opportunities for service personnel, and we will work with our colleagues in the Ministry of Defence on that issue.
	Again, we agree very much with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) in deploring the few cases of fraud. It is a pity that the Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen spent so much time on that issue, rather than on discussing under-representation and the lack of representation in some areas of the country.

Si�n Simon: My city of Birmingham has been repeatedly traduced by Opposition Members borrowing cheap soundbites from a headline-hungry judge

Hon. Members: Withdraw!

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that temperance and moderation in parliamentary language are important.

Peter Bottomley: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is there any way in which the remarks of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon) can be struck from the record? They are in themselves publicity seeking.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I remind the hon. Gentleman that all Members take responsibility for anything that they say in the House.

Oliver Heald: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it not out of order to make an insulting remark about a judge?

Several hon. Members: rose

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I shall respond to the hon. Gentleman's point of order. Criticism of a judge during a debate is out of order; it would have to be done by means of a substantive motion.

Bridget Prentice: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon) that much has been said about what happened in Birmingham and he is right to point out that those claims were exaggerated. We need to look at the facts.
	I remind the House that the recent general election, like the last one, the one before that and many before that, was run successfully, safely and securely. That is a fact.

John Hemming: rose

Bridget Prentice: I am sorry, I do not have time to give way. I really must press on.
	Of course, we need to boost public confidence in the system. Everyone in the House condemns any attempt to undermine it. In the House, there are people with experience of between 1,500 and 2,000 elections, whether local or generalwho better equipped to comment on the electoral process?
	The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) seemed to be saying that the whole electoral system was riddled with fraud. Is he saying that that is happening everywhere in the country except Huntingdon? We should not exaggerate.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) made several useful points about making the franchise accessible, easy to use and secure. He outlined the disparities in registration and drew parallels with the census. He made an important point about the balance between security and accessibility and said that if we push the balance too far in one direction, we may undermine the system.
	Points were made about postal voting, which has received cross-party support. Every party believes that the use of the postal vote is an improvement to the system. Indeed, the public like postal voting; it offers them a choice, and all the evidence shows that people who request a postal vote are more likely to exercise it. None of us could disagree with that.
	As my right hon. and learned Friend said at the start of the debate, we had hoped to find cross-party consensus on many of the issues under discussion today. However, after listening to what both Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen said about proportional representation, I fear that we will find it difficult to bridge that particular gap.
	We have responded to the Electoral Commission's reports by accepting many of its recommendations on improving access and participation. We have said that we will legislate when parliamentary time allows. That is why my right hon. and learned Friend has undertaken an important consultation to form part of our thinking before we bring a Bill before the House. She has already met many hon. Members, both old and new, from across the House and several have already commented on the policy paper.
	The debate had all the promise of an opportunity for the people probably most expert in the conduct of elections to come together to discuss in a serious and considered manner how best to engage more people in the election process. It was an opportunity to have an informed discussion about how we engage citizens in our democracy. I was sorry that the Opposition Front Bench did not engage in that discussion

Patrick McLoughlin: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
	Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	The House divided: Ayes 175, Noes 361.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):
	The House divided: Ayes 300, Noes 226.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Madam Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House believes that the General and local elections were safe and secure, and produced results that were fair and accurate; recognises that public confidence in the electoral process is paramount; and believes that the Government's constitutional changes have strengthened democratic accountability, bringing our institutions closer to the people.

NEPAL

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Gillian Merron.]

John Stanley: I do not have any interest to declare, but I should like to state that I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Nepal.
	I am very glad to have the opportunity to initiate this brief but necessary debate on Nepal. It is one of the extraordinary paradoxes of the world since 9/11 that while huge attention has justifiably been focused on the war against terrorism, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq, and then in relation to al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda-type elements all round the world, precious little attention has been paid to the country that is most in the grip of terrorism of any country on this globethe Kingdom of Nepal.
	Nepal is a country that has suffered tragically and most severely in the past nine years since the Maoist terrorism began. Indeed, the contrast between the situation nine years ago and that of today is very striking.
	Nine years ago, in 1996, I had the great honour of leading the last British Inter-Parliamentary Union outward delegation to Nepal. In 1996, one could travel anywhere at any time in Nepal. There was no Maoist terrorism, there was a free media and free political expression and an emerging but strong and genuine multi-party democracy, not least because of the far-sightedness of the late King Birendra in ending the Panchayat system in 1990. Prior to our visit, two general elections had been successfully held in Nepal, under universal suffrage and with international observer teams, including Members of the House of Commons, in place on both occasions.
	The close relationship between our Parliament and the Parliament in Nepal was demonstrated symbolically and in reality when, in 1992, our Parliament gifted the Speakers' Chairs for the two Houses of Parliament in Nepal. We saw those Chairs, carved in magnificent British oak, in situ in the National Assembly and the House of Representatives.
	Today, Nepal is racked with terrorism. It is stalked by brutality, fear, appalling human rights violations, committed by the Maoists and also by Government forces. There is no Parliament in operation or in prospect, at least for the next few years. In the past nine years, the country has sunk from what was, in 1996, a democratic triumph to effective parliamentary oblivion.
	I want to raise seven issues with the Minister. First, I want to ask about the role of the British Government's special representative to Nepal. I welcomed the appointment of Sir Jeffrey James as the special representative. The parliamentary group had beneficial contact with him throughout the time that he held the post. The need for a special representative is even greater now than when Sir Jeffrey James was appointed, especially with the assumption of autocratic power by King Gyanendra. Yet Sir Jeffrey James has retired and not been replaced. I hope that the Minister can tell the House why a successor has not been appointed and who is taking on the responsibilities that were previously discharged by Sir Jeffrey James. I hope that the Minister can assure us that the fact that there has been no successor to Sir Jeffrey James in no way suggests a diminution in the priority that the British Government give Nepal.
	Secondly, I want to ask about the British Government's policy on the provision of military equipment to Nepal. I acknowledge that the Government are in some difficulty. They obviously wish to make it clear to King Gyanendra that they, along with other Governments around the world, strongly disapprove of the King's assumption of autocratic powers. However, I am sure that the British Government are also conscious of the seriousness of Maoist terrorism and the need to try to support the royal Nepalese army with equipment that will save lives, not least those of innocent civilians.
	It is evident that the Government's policy has performed something of a switchback. Initially, there was the ill-fated gift of two helicopters, which rapidly became grounded. That was followed by a further gift of short take-off and landing aircraft. Then, in January this year, the Government announced a package of what was described as non-lethal military equipment. Within a matter of two or three weeks, however, that announcement had to be superseded when the King took power at the beginning of February and the Government announced that the package had had to be suspended.
	Only recently have we seen the release of one element of that package: the bomb detection and disposal equipment. I believe that the Government made the right decision in that regard, because only one function can be performed by such equipment, and that is to save lives, which is obviously the key objective. Will the Minister clarify what is now the British Government's policy? Are they going to release more items from the package that was announced in January, and are they now following a policy of releasing at least some types of equipment to help to prevent the worst eventuality of all, a complete Maoist takeover of the remainder of the country?
	Thirdly, I want to refer to the position of the Gurkha connection, which goes back some 200 years. It is a key feature of the relationship between Britain and Nepal and, as we all know, the Gurkha soldiers in the British Army have served this country in two world wars and many other conflicts, and they continue to do so today with the utmost distinction. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us that political developments in Nepal, particularly the assumption of power by the King, will not in any way imperil the Gurkha connection or reduce its strength. That is a key assurance that I am seeking from the Minister.
	Fourthly, I want to find out what role the British Government see themselves playing bilaterally with Nepal in the key objective of trying to restore parliamentary democracy in that country. Are they, through our embassy in Kathmandu, engaging in dialogue with the constitutional parliamentary parties right across the political spectrum in Nepal? Are they also seeking to establish any degree of communication, directly or indirectly, with the Maoists themselves? What policy are the Government following bilaterally? Is it simply a passive policy of noting what is going on, or are they trying to make a contribution to bringing about an effective constitutional parliamentary settlement in Nepal?
	Fifthly, the European Union joined together and made a statement at the beginning of February, when it condemned the assumption of power by the King. It also made a strong statement on human rights and declared, as other countries and organisations round the world have done, that there should be a restoration of parliamentary democracy in Nepal. Does the Minister consider that that is the only role that the EU can play in this crisis? Perhaps it is; Nepal is far away, and many EU member states have very little involvement with it. Many, understandably, do not even have embassies in Kathmandu. Again, it would be helpful if the Minister could clarify the British Government's expectations of the EU in this regard.
	Sixthly, I am disappointed at the degree of non-involvement by the United Nations in the critical situation in Nepal. There has been limited involvement through the UN Commission on Human Rights, but that is all. Nepal has not been referred to the Security Council and, perhaps even more surprisingly, no steps have been taken by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to establish a special representative in the country. Could the Minister tell me whether the British Government would welcome Nepal being taken to the Security Council, and whether they would welcome the UN Secretary-General having a special representative in Nepal? I would like to hear any comments that the Minister may wish to make about a future UN role in efforts to resolve the crisis in the country.
	My seventh and last question relates to the position of Nepal's all-important southern neighbour, India, with its 1,000-mile-long boundary with Nepal open. Of all Nepal's neighbours, it is undoubtedly the country with the most to gain from a satisfactory settlement in Nepal. Equally, the country that will have most to lose if Nepal dissolves into complete Maoist control is India, because India has an incipientindeed, I would say more than incipientMaoist-type problem with the Naxalites in the country.
	India is, of course, deeply suspicious of any form of external involvement in Nepal, being always influenced by its position on external involvement in Kashmir. Having said that, I would add that I have no doubt that India is in a position to influence events in Nepal like, perhaps, no other country. What are the British Government doing to try to maximise the Indian Government's contribution to achieving a settlement in Nepal?
	When people in this country hear mention of Nepal they understandably think of the majestic Himalayas, but Nepal is very much more than its mountains. Nepal is a country with a long and independent history. It is a country with a depth and quality of culture that is truly remarkable. And it is a country whose people are characterised by their strength, their courage and their loyalty, along with a true gift of friendship. It is the people of Nepalwho face brutality on an appalling scale, who face living in a climate of fear, who face serious denials of their human rightswho need their human rights and freedoms to be restored. I ask, and urge, the British Government to do all in their power to that end.

Kim Howells: I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) on securing the debate, and on the structure and delivery of his speech. It was a privilege to hear it.
	The United Kingdom Government are deeply concerned about the escalating conflict in Nepal. As the right hon. Gentleman made clear, they have been closely involved in efforts to restore peace and stability in the country for several years. The right hon. Gentleman was right to observe that there is a great deal more to Nepal than those beautiful mountains, although when I was a child in the 1950s Tensing and Hillary reaching the top of Everest inspired me to become a mountain climber, which I have been all my life. I have never climbed in Nepal, but now that I am the Minister responsible for the area perhaps I shall have a chance to visit it, and even to climb a small peak.
	Our historic ties with Nepal, our continuing recruitment of Gurkhas, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, and our large bilateral aid programme underline the importance of those efforts to restore peace and stability in the country, but I am afraid that there are no easy answers or quick fixes for the problems that Nepal faces.
	I pay tribute, as the right hon. Gentleman did, to the work of Sir Jeffrey James, our special representative for Nepal. The right hon. Gentleman will not be very convinced by this answer, but the role of special representative for Nepal was never intended to be permanent. It was set up to deliver three objectives. The first was to draw together United Kingdom policy on Nepal and to provide a strong focal point for it. The second was to co-ordinate international efforts in support of the peace process and the third to provide advice in the event that negotiations got off the ground.
	Sir Jeffrey's role was initially set to last one year. In the event, his position was extended for a further year and a quarter. Thanks to his efforts, Whitehall thinking is more joined up, and there is a greater shared international consensus on how to try to resolve the conflict. Regrettably, the prospect of negotiations remains a long way off. The role that he occupied will continue to be discharged through the close Whitehall network that he built up during his tenure and through the normal diplomatic channels, particularly our ambassador in Kathmandu.
	I echo the right hon. Gentleman's tribute to the Gurkhas. They have been, as he pointed out, a great asset to this country for many years, in times of war and peace. I was privileged to see their work at first hand just two weeks ago in Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan, where they are providing security for what is widely acknowledged to be the best provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan. The evidence of their good work is everywhere to be seen in that area. We need to continue to recruit Gurkhas. It is interesting that, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, they often come from some of the poorest areas of Nepal. I can imagine that they sometimes are torn when they think about the politics of their country, but they are a wonderful asset to this country and we aim to continue with that relationship.
	May I try to deal with the question that the right hon. Gentleman raised about the United Nations? The UN plays a significant role and has recently established a major human rights monitoring operation in Nepal, which was set up in part thanks to this country's efforts this year. Other UN agencies are also active under the United Nations Development Programme, including UNICEF and the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. There have been several high-level UN visits, including by the UN working group on enforced and involuntary disappearances, which visited in December 2004, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, who visited in January 2005, and a UN team including the UN Secretary-General's representative on internally displaced persons, Walter Kalin, who visited in April 2005. In a statement on 1 February, the Secretary-General registered his concern about the King's takeover of power.
	We believe that, if a peace process is to be sustainable, the Nepalese themselves must take ownership of it. There may be a role for mediation at some stage but that would need to be supported from the outset by the key parties involved. Our judgment is that we see limited prospects that all the key international partners would sign up to a contact group. At this stage, we believe that our focus should be on encouraging a process of constructive negotiation towards a democratic settlement. Any peace process would need discreet ground clearing at first to establish those bottom lines, and I know that the right hon. Gentleman, who is very experienced in this area, knows what I mean by that. It is very difficult to build that up unless we have that basis. One option might be for an independent and neutral third party, such as an international non-governmental organisation with expertise in facilitating dialogue, to play a part. However, at the moment there appears to be little appetite for genuine dialogue on either side.
	The right hon. Gentleman also asked about India's role. He rightly pointed out that India is Nepal's biggest trading partner, and that they have long shared a border. He also mentioned the difficulties that could arise if the conflict in Nepal spilled into India. There could be problems with the Naxalites, for example, and with many others. India has more influence over Nepal than does any other country, and an eventual settlement will need India's support if it is to succeed. We enjoy an increasingly close dialogue with our Indian partners on Nepal, and we are regularly in touch with our Indian counterparts, including at ministerial level. As a result, we have been able to share our analysis of the conflict and to offer suggestions on resolving it. We agree on the importance of restoring representative democracy.
	I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman referred to the period when there was representative democracy. All too often, we seem to assume that it has never existed in such countries, but of course, it has. India also has the most to lose from a failure to resolve the conflict, as its spilling over into India would destabilise that country's own internal politics. We maintain that a one-party Maoist state in Nepal remains an unacceptable outcome. It can best be avoided by drawing the Maoists back into the democratic fold through a negotiated political settlement.
	I remind the Housethe right hon. Gentleman will need no remindingthat there are a number of underlying causes of the conflict in Nepal, which is rooted in poverty, under-employment, discrimination, social exclusion and corruption. He was right to contrast it with the period when Nepal seemed to be making great progress. Our goal is to help Nepal emerge from the current conflict with a sustainable peace, based on the principles of civilian, accountable and democratic government.
	We have consistently argued that the conflict in Nepal cannot be resolved militarily. Instead, we advocate a negotiated political settlement as the best way to resolve it. To that end, we have been pressing for the resumption of negotiations by encouraging the King and the political parties to form a united front as the basis for dialogue with the Maoists. At the same time, we have been operating a large bilateral aid programme, run by the Department for International Development. The right hon. Gentleman will have noticed that the Under-Secretary of State for International Development listened carefully to his speech. That programme is aimed at reducing poverty and at tackling social inequality and the other underlying causes of conflict. We have provided limited assistance to the security forces to help them carry out legitimate counter-insurgency operations with greater professionalism and regard for human rights. We have also funded civil society and human rights organisations.
	As the right hon. Gentleman told the House, the King's actions on 1 February have hindered our efforts to promote peace in Nepal. We consistently advised that such a move would increase the risk of instability, undermine the institutions of democracy and ultimately put the monarchy at risk. We have criticised the King's takeover of power in direct representations to the King and in public, including through the European Union. The King has lifted the state of emergency imposed on 1 February, and most of the political party activists whom he detained under the emergency regulations have been released. However, several dozen remain in detention and others are being prevented from travelling freely. Furthermore, the Nepalese media are not able to report freely.
	The right hon. Gentleman will recall, as I can recall, a vigorous free press in Nepal, which was one of the great strengths of the country for a good period. Especially outside Kathmandu, however, many human rights organisations have been intimidated into silence, which has not helped at all.
	At the same time, the Maoists have shown little sign of willingness to negotiate. After the plenum meeting of August 2004, the Maoists decided to move forward to the strategic offensive, as they call it. It is a phase of their military campaignthe third of the three stages of classic Maoist warfare. I have to say that it has more to do with rhetoric than with what I remember of classic Maoist warfare when I had to read that stuff as a student. In view of the revisionist histories of Mao that are emerging nowadays, I am not even sure that he knew what the three phases of military campaigns were.
	Since 1 February, the Maoists have turned down the King's offer of negotiations and continued their economic, psychological and physical warfare, staging regular bandhs or strikes and blockades, which cut off food, medicine, fuel and other essential supplies to the civilian population. We are deeply concerned that human rights abuses continue unabated. The Maoists continue to use violence for political means, carrying out beatings and killings, extortion, forced displacement, mass abduction, forced military recruitment of child soldiers and attacks against political activists, human rights defenders and journalists.
	The Nepalese security forces, too, are involved in grave violations. We have heard of summary killings, rape, enforced disappearance, arbitrary arrests and torture. That is happening in what was once, as the right hon. Gentleman described for us, a beautiful, productive and peaceful place where people wanted to live.
	Upholding human rights remains a key element of the UK's efforts to resolve the conflict in Nepal, and we have regularly spoken out against abuses committed by the security forces and the Maoists. The UK has consistently funded human rights organisations, and we are now in the process of funding the new UN human rights monitoring operation, for which the UK successfully pressed at the recent UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
	Bearing all that firmly in mind, we also recognise the legitimate efforts of the Government of Nepal to protect their citizens from Maoist attacks. While the overwhelming majority of our bilateral assistance has been focused on poverty reduction, civil society and human rights, part of our assistance under the Global Conflict Prevention Pool, run jointly by Department for International Development, the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has been set aside for security assistance. As part of our conflict prevention strategy since 2001, we have donated a package of non-lethal military assistance, which has included two transport helicopters
	The motion having been made after Seven o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
	Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to Eight o'clock.